On April 12, 2024, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), in coordination with the Lao Dong (Labor) Newspaper, organized a Workshop on “Credit to support forestry and fisheries: Maintaining the position of the billion-dollar export sectors”. Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu attended and made a keynote speech at the Workshop.
The Workshop was aimed to create a forum for specialists and management authorities to discuss and find solutions to promote credit for the priority sectors as directed by the Government’s policy, especially for such fields as processing and export, in order to support the businesses to recover and develop sustainably.
At the Workshop, Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Tung, Deputy Director General of the SBV Department of Credit for Economic Sectors, asserted that the SBV always considers agriculture and rural development, including the forestry and fisheries sectors, as one of the priority fields for investment. Therefore, over the past time, the SBV has issued and implemented multiple policies to direct the credit flows into these sectors. The SBV has also managed the monetary policy instruments in a consistent and flexible manner, contributing to maintaining the macro-economic stability, controlling the inflation, ensuring a prudent banking system, supporting the socio-economic recovery and development, thereby creating favorable conditions for the agriculture and rural development. The SBV has also established a ceiling lending interest rate for short term loans at a low level (currently at 4% p.a.), which is applied to the priority sectors and areas (including the forestry and fisheries sectors).
An overview of the Workshop
By the end of December 2023, the total loan outstanding of the banking sector had reached VND 3,300 trillion, an increase of 11.56% as compared to that of the end of 2022. Of which, the loan outstanding of the fisheries sector reached VND 236,624 billion, up by 12.26%; the loan outstanding of the forestry sector reached VND 204,813 billion, up by over 35%. Especially, the credit package worth VND 15,000 billion for the forestry and fisheries sectors have been implemented successfully by several commercial banks. Despite the fact that the Program was supposed to last until June 30, 2024, 13 commercial banks having registered to join the Program had already disbursed 100% of the target capital to nearly 6,000 turns of borrowers.
In order to continue supporting the businesses in the forestry and fisheries sectors to recover and develop their production activities in the coming time, the SBV Governor has requested the credit institutions to consider to upscale the credit package of VND 15,000 billion to become a credit package worth VND 30,000 billion for the forestry and fisheries sectors, and this request has received the consensus from all of the commercial banks. Up to now, the commercial banks have completed the registration and have continued to disburse capital for the package with the accumulated amount of over VND 17,500 billion to 6,500 turns of borrowers.
Speaking at the Workshop, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu said that under the strong leadership of the Prime Minister, the SBV has conducted various measures to support the businesses, including the ones in the forestry and fisheries sectors. In the coming time, the SBV Deputy Governor requested the banks and the businesses to cooperate in the spirit of sharing with one another. The businesses should be open to share with the banks their financial information and financial reports; thereby, the banks can determine their capital flows and decide to provide them with loans. Regarding the VND 30,000 billion credit package for the forestry and fisheries sectors, the SBV Deputy Governor emphasized that this was a package proposed by the SBV and had received a strong support from the Prime Minister. “If the current VND 30,000 billion package runs out, we are ready to propose an increase to VND 45,000 billion, or even to VND 50,000 billion. This is a good support policy for the businesses in the forestry and fisheries sectors to overcome their difficulties in the current period”, said the SBV Deputy Governor.
Le Hang