Transactions at VPB (Illustrative image. Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is to makedecision soon on cutting the prime interest rate, the bank’s Deputy GovernorDao Minh Tu said at a meeting on March 12.
He said reducing the central interest rate is a solution to help creditorganisations have abundant liquidity thus in a better position to supportbusinesses amid the complicated developments of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Deputy Governor added that the SBV has yet to consider adjust thecredit growth target because the Government has not adjusted macro-economicobjectives. He noted that many banks have launched big credit packages withreduced interest rates to support enterprises and people affected by theepidemic.
According to Nguyen Quoc Hung, director of the SBV’s Credit Department,credit organisations have re-scheduled debt payment deadlines for loans worth 21.75trillion VND (940 million USD), and cut interest rates for loans worth 185trillion VND (7.96 billion USD) for 34,350 customers.
Hung said credit growth was very slow due to the epidemic, at 0.1percent this year to March 4 compared to a 0.85 percent increase in the sameperiod last year. Preliminary reports of 23 credit organisations showed about926 trillion VND worth of loans (or 11.3 percent of the total banking system’soutstanding loans) was affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Hereported that the SBV had received appeals for help from business associations intransport, leather-footwear, cassava, coffee, and non-State education sectors.In response, the SBV has adopted such measures as debtrescheduling, waiver or lowering of the lending interest rates against existingloans under Circular 01/2020, which will take effect on March 13. ,
The SBV will continue to closely monitoring the developments and impactsof the COVID-19 epidemic so as to take timely measures to support productionand business activities, thus reducing losses caused by the epidemic./.
VNA
