Speaking at a news briefing last week, SBV reported that credit of the banking system as of February 20 dropped 1.66% against late 2013. In recent years, credit has always seen low growth or even declined in the early months of year.
Credit in dong declined 1.94% while foreign-currency credit rose 0.11%.
The forex market and exchange rate saw stable developments in the first two months of this year. The central bank continued to buy foreign currencies to supplement foreign reserves.
As of February 26, banks’ exchange rates had been stable, fluctuating between VND21,080 and VND21,120 to the U.S. dollar.
Earlier, speaking at the Government’s regular meeting, SBV Governor Nguyen Van Binh said that the central bank bought over US$4 billion to spur foreign reserve in the first two months.
As banks have been sitting on huge capital, SBV has not given refinancing loans to lenders over the past time, Binh said.
Explaining redundant capital at banks, Binh said the State Treasury is still depositing over VND57 trillion at credit institutions. The central bank wants to speed up disbursement and has requested the Government and related ministries to boost bond issue in the first quarter of 2014.
Mobilization rates have dropped back after Tet, with those of tenors from one to two months dropping by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage point. Lending rates have also been stabilized.
Doan Thai Son, deputy head of legislation under the central bank, said that SBV is still supervising restructuring plans of nine weak banks. Aside from eight banks that have presented their restructuring schemes, the remaining bank has also submitted its plan with participation of foreign investors.
As foreign ownership limit is still low, the Government will consider restructuring projects on a case-to-case basis. If the plans are not approved, credit institutions will have to undergo more drastic measures.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Quoc Hung, vice chairman of Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC), said that VAMC has bought VND39 trillion worth of bad debts from banks versus its 2013 target of VND30 trillion. The enterprise has issued VND31 trillion worth of special bonds.
Some banks have sought approval from the central bank to provide them with refinancing loans basing on value of the special bonds issued by VAMC. However, no banks have obtained capital via this channel so far.
VAMC is appraising VND7 trillion worth of debts and has plans to buy around VND10 trillion in the first quarter.
Đăng ký: VietNam News