Illustrative image (Source: VNA) They had three kinds of loans available, with the city authorities acting asintermediaries for two: low-interest credit packages and loans for key sectorslike agriculture, support industries, high-tech application and exports.
For the third, district- and lower-level authorities helped bring the banks andenterprises together to address the latter’s funding needs.
Sixteen banks joined the programme with total capital of nearly 212 trillionVND.
“The programme expanded with total loans last year being 60 percent more thanin 2015, and the number of customers increased by 2.3 times,” Nguyen HoangMinh, deputy director of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s HCM City office,told a January 10 meeting reviewing the programme.
According to the SBV, complaints from businesses about difficulties in gettingcredit have decreased, and in fact banks are meeting with enterprises in a bidto find customers since they are awash in funds.
This year the programme will focus on high-tech agriculture, start-upbusinesses and household businesses that were developed into enterprises, andseeks to lend 241 trillion VND (10.7 billion USD) with short-term interestrates of under 7 percent and medium- and long-term rates of 8–10 percent.
The city’s annual price stabilisation programme around Tet was also discussed at the meeting.
“The programme has played a very important part in stabilising the market,” VoVan Viet, head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s domestic marketdepartment, said.
Before the programme began in 2011, city authorities had spent 50-300 billionVND a year to stabilise the consumer market by lending money to enterprisesagreeing to sell at low prices.
In 2012-14, they used both public funds and bank credit for the programme.
But since 2015, bank funding has been enough, with lenders providing 13-14trillion VND a year.
Nguyen Phuoc Thanh, Deputy Governor of the SBV, taking about the bank –enterprise connection programme, said: “It should be expanded to benefit moreenterprises.”
But he also stressed that the banking sector needs a clear framework to becreated by the authorities to work with the business community.
“Local authorities should create favourable conditions for enterprises tocomplete legal requirements related to their assets.”-VNA
VNA
