On April 25, 2024, Vietnam Economic Forum 2024 with the theme "Removing difficulties in accessing capital resources and markets for export enterprises" was organized by the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper at its Editorial Office (Building at No.123 Vo Van Tan Street, Vo Thi Sau Ward, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City) in hybrid (both offline and online) format. First Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and representatives of the relevant SBV’s Departments attended the Forum virtually from the SBV headquarters.
SBV First Deputy Governor attends and speaks at the headquarters of the SBV
Speaking at the Forum, First Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu made high evaluation for the importance of the export sector to the country's economy. However, the export activities have been greatly affected by the general situations of the world economy. The low demands for credit and investment are continuing to impact the performance of export businesses.
The SBV Deputy Governor informed that it has been a difficult task for the SBV to manage the monetary policy, ensuring a balance of all macroeconomic indicators and the harmony among the exchange rate, the interest rates, the inflation and the economic growth, and at the same time supporting the businesses.
An overview of the Forum
Despite all that, according to the SBV Deputy Governor, the banking sector has always ensured to meet promptly and fully the demands for capital resources for production, import and export operations with stable and low interest rates, and the exchange rate maintained quite stably, without strong fluctuations.
On the key import and export sectors such as garment and textile, seafood, and wooden products, the Deputy Governor informed that so far, the disbursement of the VND 30,000 billion credit package has reached about VND 18,000 billion, and this package has been highly appreciated by the businesses in the wooden furniture and seafood sectors. The SBV will continue to direct the commercial banks to accelerate the disbursement of this credit package
“When the VND 30,000 billion package has been disbursed fully, it is possible to launch other concessional credit resources to continue to support the businesses", the SBV Deputy Governor said.
In addition to reducing the lending interest rates under the concessional credit programs for the businesses in the forestry, fisheries and rice sectors, according to the Deputy Governor, the SBV is currently urgently finalizing the legal procedures to extend the effectiveness of Circular No. 02 /2023/TT-NHNN until the end of 2024, instead of the current termination at the end of June. Thereby, it can enable the commercial banks to continue the rescheduling of the debt payment, and maintaining the debt categories, and enhance their lending to customers, including import and export businesses.
On the exchange rate, according to the Deputy Governor, the banking sector always considers the exchange rate as a significant factor directly affecting a series of different operations, from the management of the monetary policy and the fiscal policy to the production activities of businesses and the people.
At present, the SBV is putting a lot of efforts into managing the key exchange rate in order to prevent speculative hoarding of foreign currencies, with an ultimate solution of selling foreign currencies to balance the supply and stablize the foreign currency prices. Therefore, the SBV Deputy Governor suggested that the businesses should not hoard and invest in the foreign currencies, putting more pressure on the balanced state of the foreign currencies in the economy,
At the Forum, representatives of different Ministries, agencies, several economic experts, etc. also proposed possible solutions, and to create a push for the business community to remove the difficulties in the coming time.
HY