The World Bank on Wednesday approved the first Economic Management and Competitiveness Credit worth US$250 million for Vietnam to help the country with economic management reforms for higher productivity and competitiveness. The global lender’s board of directors in a press release said the concessional financing is to support reforms in seven policy areas to step up reforms in the country. The seven... 

After successfully raising liquidity, and despite low interest rates, many Vietnamese banks have been finding it difficult to find new customers for loans. Many Vietnamese banks have been finding it difficult to find new customers for loans According to the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City branch, the percentage of outstanding loans held by banks in the city increased by only 0.22pct; meanwhile,... 

Enterprises still find it difficult to access bank loans due to sky-high lending rates and low confidence of lenders in them, heard a meeting between the HCMC authorities and businessmen on Tuesday. Tran Viet Anh, vice chairman of the HCMC Rubber and Plastics Association, said plastics firms had won many orders for export until June. However, plastics producers are facing a material shortage, and... 

Lending rates may fall in the current macroeconomic context, but it is unlikely they will steeply drop to 5-8% as desired, heard a forum on challenges and opportunities for businesses in 2013 held in HCMC last Saturday. An entrepreneur from the Binh Dinh Businessmen Club in HCMC posed a question as to why lending rates in Vietnam cannot be lowered to 2-3% as in the U.S. or other Western countries.... 

Given the wide gap of lending rates between Vietnam dong and foreign currency loans, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has proposed the central bank extend the deadline for borrowing foreign currencies until late next year instead this year, said the VASEP chairman. Tran Thien Hai said that VASEP members are in dire need of capital to maintain business, and given... 

Vietnam Bank for Industry and Trade, or VietinBank, has continued to launch preferential loan programs for both corporate and individual customers, offering lending rates from 8.95% and 4% per annum for dong and U.S. dollar loans respectively. For enterprises, VietinBank applies the lowest rate of 8.95% per annum to a VND10 trillion credit package while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)... 

Local businesses are still decrying the sky-high lending rates for their old loans despite the central bank’s recent promise to push the borrowing costs down from July 15 to prop up the struggling economy. Many business executives complained to the Daily that banks have only announced lending rate cuts and credit packages for new loans while they are still maintaining high rates on old loans for... 

Stoking up personal lending is one way for banks to boost credit growth. Since few firms could satisfy strict lending requirements, banks sought to expand credit growth through promoting personal lending. Ho Chi Minh City-based HDBank offered individual customers wanted to borrow for production, business or consumption needs lower interest rates ranging from 12.4 to 13 per cent, per year. Of this,... 

The outstanding loans given to foreign invested enterprises (FIEs) just account for a small proportion in the total outstanding loans of the whole banking system, while the bad debt ratio is much lower than the average level. Preliminary statistics about the outstanding loans given to FIEs have made public, giving the answer to the question about the borrowing and debt payment of the economic sector.... 

* State giants owe hefty debts Overnight lending rate in the inter-bank market hit the nadir of 0.5% on Wednesday, showing that banks are struggling to find outlets for their capital. The trivial overnight inter-bank rate of 0.5% per year was seen at few transactions, but the popular annual rate is 1%, which is also the lowest level since 2006. Meanwhile, as of mid-May, credit growth was still minus...