HCM City (VNA) – Morethan 773,000 out of over 1 million firms in the country, or 73.4 percent, areunable to access credit, it was reported at a conference on promoting access tocredit held by the National Credit Information Centre (CIC) in Ho Chi Minh Cityon June 18.

Le Anh Tuan, director of the CIC’sResearch Development Division, said in HCM City alone, 44.5 percent of firms donot have access to credit.

He said even though the figure includedfirms which do not need credit, the fact is a majority of firms are unable toaccess loans provided by credit institutions or have to borrow at high interestrates.

The CIC’s figure is similar tostatistics of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which estimated about70 percent of domestic firms cannot access banks’ loan. Deputy Director of VCCI’sHo Chi Minh branch Tran Ngoc Liem said banks still give preferential treatmentto State-owned enterprises compared to small and medium-sized ones.

According to Liem, the mainreason is the SMEs do not have assets for mortgage, and their financialsituation lacks transparency, leading to banks hesitant to lend.

The situation prompts creditorganisations to improve access to their credit, in which the CIC plays in importantrole in supplying firms with credit information.

Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputydirector of the State Bank of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh branch, the CIC’s informationis important for banks to control risks in lending, because a firm can openaccounts in many different banks at the same time.

The CIC’s database is storingmore than 40.6 million dossiers of borrowers, including about 1 million enterprises.The database is built with the participation of 122 credit organisations andforeign banks’ branches, nearly 1.200 people’s credit funds and 4 officialmicro-financial organisations.

To improve access to credit, theCIC is working to provide more products and flexible services in line withcurrent trends on the financial market, diversify channels for informationprovision and reduce fees for using credit information.

Recently, the centre has putinto operation a portal for borrowers, allowing them to study and select creditpackages as well as to submit borrowing requests to suitable creditorganisations. The portal also allows participating credit organisation to connectwith customers, thus cutting time and cost in searching for and selecting customerswhile ensuring the transparency in the relationship between creditorganisations and borrowers.-VNA