Vietnam Banks Extend Soft Loans to VND144.3 Tln
Commercial banks in Vietnam reportedly had lent VND144.312 trillion (US$8.54 billion) as of March 13 as a result of the government’s 4 per cent interest rate subsidy program, the State Bank of Vietnam, the country's central bank.
This is the sixth week since the government launched the program, through which, the government expects to inject VND420 trillion (US$24.852 billion) into the economy to ward off the downturn.
Of the total figure, state-owned commercial banks and central people's credit funds provided VND114.537 trillion, commercial joint stock banks loaned VND26.837 trillion and foreign-invested banks lent VND2.938 trillion.
Last week, the SBV said that interest rates of dong-denominated deposits were slightly up at 0.2 per cent-0.5 per cent/year for all terms. Commercial joint stock banks raised interest rates of dong-denominated deposits to 7.42 per cent-7.74 per cent/year while state-owned banks hiked the rates to 6.91 per cent-7.58 per cent/year.
Meanwhile, the state-run commercial banks cut 0.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent of interest rates of dollar-denominated deposits to 2.04 per cent-3.09 per cent/year while commercial joint stock banks slashed the rates to 2.14 per cent-2.65 per cent/year.
Economists warned of the quality of the soft loans which are flowing into state-owned corporations while small and medium enterprises find it hard to gain access to. Last year, SOEs were cautioned of investments into non-core business activities. (SBV)
Vietnamese
