Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the establishment of an inter-sectoral steering committee responsible for implementing schemes on restructuring the system of credit institutions and handling bad debts.

The committee is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh while State Bank of Vietnam (SVB) Governor Nguyen Van Binh serves as its standing vice chairman.

The committee is tasked with aiding the PM in directing the implementation of measures to restructure credit institutions and deal with their bad debts during the 2011-15 period.

It also proposes orientations and measures to handle important emerging issues during the execution of the schemes.

Bad debts in Vietnam’s entire banking system were 3.79 percent of the outstanding loans at the end of 2013, according to the SBV.

Last year, the SBV reached its initial target on settling non-performance loans, in which the State-owned Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) bought nearly 40 trillion VND (1.88 billion USD) of bad debts from local commercial banks.

The bank continues to set bad debt settlement as a key target of its monetary policy this year. Its objective is to basically clear the current bad debts by the end of 2015.-VNA