First Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has affirmed that the SBV always proactively conducts consistent measures in order to improve the accessibility to bank credit, contributing to limiting “black credit”.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the Dialogue with workers in Bac Giang province
Promoting official credit channels
On June 12, at the Dialogue between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and over 4,500 workers in Bac Giang province, Deputy Governor Dao Minh Tu stated that black credit has been a critical problem, and the Party and the Government have always looking for all possible ways to repel it away from the social life.
The Government has given very strong directions and initiated; several Ministries, such as the SBV and the Ministry of Public Security, and the local authorities have actively engaged in this fight and conducted various measures to control “black credit” over the past years.
On the SBV’s side, the SBV, through its collaboration with the Ministry of Public Security, has concluded that the reason for “black credit” to exist is the high demand for credit, especially in the remote areas. Therefore, the SBV has realized that it is necessary to resolve two issues. The first one is to recognize the people’s legitimate demand for credit for their daily activities. It is the responsibility of the SBV and the local authorities to meet this demand. The second issue is to resolve the illegitimate demand for credit for engagement in illegal activities, such as gambling or other social evils. And obviously, it is the responsibility of the competent authorities to conduct measures to deter and eliminate those activities.
Deputy Governor Dao Minh answers questions from the participating workers
Over the past years, the SBV has strengthened the banking service systems, ensuring that consumption credit is accessible to all people, especially those in the remote and difficult areas, and not only to farmers but also to workers. The borrowing requirements and procedures have been simplified to help people to access easily small credit funds to pay for their children’s education, healthcare services, housing rents, etc.
The SBV Deputy Governor also informed that two big finance companies (belonging to VPBank and HDBank) had committed to implementing a support package worth VND 10,000 billion with the interest rates equivalent to 50% of the current common rates in order to provide credit to workers with legitimate borrowing needs.
The SBV would oversee these lending activities, and hopes for the close coordination of Vietnam General Confederation of Labor to ensure the effective implementation and use of these support packages for the right purposes.
Joining hands to resolve the housing issue for workers
The housing demand from workers is very high, especially when the socio-economic growth at the industrial parks has been increasingly steadily. Therefore, over the past time, the Government and the Prime Minister have strongly directed the relevant institutions to enhance the development of social housing projects, including housing for workers at the industrial parks.
About the capital resources, recently the Government has promulgated Resolution No. 11 on the Socio-economic Recovery Program. Accordingly, projects on housing for workers are also among the beneficiaries of this Program, with the total support package size of VND 350 trillion for the entire Program. Besides, there are two beneficiary groups which have been added to the Program. The first group is the investors engaged in projects on social housing and housing for workers, with 2% interest rate support and the total fund of VND 40 trillion. The second group is the workers and employees in the industrial parks, who can access bank loans with the interest rate of 4.8% p.a. for a maximum period of 25 years, and the total fund of VND 15 trillion.
Especially, the Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry of Construction to take lead in coordinating with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, the SBV and Vietnam Bank for Social Policies to work with the local authorities in order to promote and accelerate the implementation of the social housing and housing for workers projects.
Le Hang