Hanoi (VNA) - The Government has instructed correspondingadministrative authorities to aim for a 0.5 percent decrease in lendinginterest rates from now until the end of 2017, while keeping taxes, fees andother charges unchanged, in order to propel the current disbursement rate inpublic spending and boost businesses’ productivity.

Under Resolution 84/NQ-CP issued last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucsigned the request for the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) to take the initiativein monitoring the money supply and general monetary policy to suit theactuality of the country’s macroeconomic flows based on inflation rates and themoney market.

At present, the PM has asked the SBV to strive for both a 0.5 percent interestrate reduction and a 21 to 22 percent annual credit growth rate for 2017.

Simultaneously, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), Ministry ofFinance (MoF), and other central and local departments or agencies will shifttheir focus to accelerating the disbursement rates for public investment, asstated in Resolution 70/NQ-CP.

If these changes can be implemented, the country should be looking at a muchbetter fourth quarter result for 2017, including the annual goal of 6.7 percentGDP growth.

Additionally, all taxes, fees and charges should remain unchanged in 2017 toencourage exports and production, in the hope of achieving economic growthconsistent with the domestic market.

In the last four months of 2017, increases in the disbursement of publicspending on projects, including from official development assistance and theState budget, should play a significant role in helping economic sectors reachtheir year on year growth goals of 3.05 percent for the agriculture sector,7.91 for industrial production, and 7.19 percent for tourism and services.

In the first eight months of 2017, the MoF has reported a total of 137 trillionVND (6.1 billion USD) in State budget disbursement for public projects,amounting to 38.4 percent of the yearly plan for public investment as approved bythe National Assembly, in comparison with 2016’s 39 percent over the sameperiod.

On the other hand, the money and credit market has been stable, with creditrates marking a year on year increase of 10.06 percent as of the end of August.

As the SBV is in charge of keeping lending rates low to encourage borrowingfrom businesses and other economic sectors, the MoF must take the lead inimplementing support policies to monitor the State budget, guarding againstmisspending, promoting saving across all sectors and strictly following theGovernment’s regulations on financial and budget management.

The MoF has in turn asked local authorities to help reduce business relatedcosts, and analyse the impact of an increase in value added tax on the generaleconomy.

The Government also requested the MPI and the MoF to work with the Ministry ofTransport on mobilising investment towards strategic public trafficinfrastructure projects, helping speed up disbursement on the North-Southhighway project, as well as the national railway construction project and theLong Thanh airport project in HCM City.

Phuc also required the SBV to increase monitoring, inspection and dealing withany breaches in the credit sector, especially when it comes to the financial branch’ssystem security.-VNA