On October 11st, Governor Le Minh Hung of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) had a meeting with Mr. Mitsuhiro Furusawa – Deputy Managing Director of International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the framework of IMF/WB 2018 Annual Meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
At the meeting, Mr. Furusawa congratulated on Vietnam’s economic achievements and he illustrated these progressed by IMF Article IV Report on Vietnam 2018. At the same time, Deputy General Director stressed that Vietnam has been one of member countries that are highly evaluated by the IMF for its progresses in economic development so IMF Management Board decided to apply lapse of time – LOT in approving Article IV report for Vietnam due to its belief in Vietnam’s economic achievements and potentials without risks in short term.
SBV Governor Le Minh Hung expressed his sincere thanks and highly appreciated the supports and consulting activities of the IMF in general and the Deputy Managing Director provided for Vietnam in regard to structure reform, improvement of monetary policy effectiveness, international reserve management, and improving the forecast and statistic services, fiscal policy and public debt management.
Especially, SBV Governor highly evaluated the IMF’s Management board approval of LOT mechanism applied to Vietnam. Addressing in the meeting, SBV Governor briefed the guests of Vietnam’s socio – economic results over the past 9 months. Accordingly, in the first 9 months of 2018, the economic growth in Vietnam was 6.98%, the highest level recorded since 2011; inflation continued to be remained under average ratio of 4% as defined by National Assembly; basic inflation was stable at 1.41%. The amount of FDI disbursement reached USD 13.25 billion, increased by 6% as compared to the same period of 2017. Vietnam Government has approved the Strategy for banking sector development toward 2015, vision to 2030 that created background for developing modern services and expanding the coverage banking services in the society.
Commending Vietnam’s socio – economic achievements in the first months of 2018, Deputy Managing Director Furusawa affirmed the SBV has contributed greatly to these results through its effective management of monetary policy, thereby maintaining the stability of money and forex markets, accelerating the trust of investors. The Deputy Managing Director also highly appreciated Vietnam in remaining capital inflows in spite of unexpected movements of the world market, and the wide openness of domestic economy of Vietnam. He illustrated that during last 9 months of 2018, the amount of USD 13.9 billion had flowed from developing and emerging markets while net inflow into Vietnam had still remained positive. The IMF Deputy Managing Director strongly believed that the newly approved Strategy for Banking sector development will support the SBV to regulate monetary policy more effectively in order to cope with risks and unexpected issues in the coming time.
MH