Tran Thu
In its recent report on public debts, the Ministry of Finance said Vietnam’s public debts had reached VND2,395,488 billion as of December 31, 2014, equivalent to 60.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), and that foreign debts accounted for 39.9% of GDP.
If last year’s GDP was around US$183 billion, the country’s foreign debts would be some US$73 billion. With the inter-bank exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and Vietnam dong adjusted up from VND21,246 to VND21,458 per dollar, Vietnam will have to pay an additional VND15 trillion.
These are just estimates as debts carry long terms. Meanwhile, there is no accurate data about foreign debts Vietnam has to pay this year to anticipate short-term impact.
Talking about the impact of the fall of the local currency on public debts, Pham Hong Hai, chief executive officer of HSBC Vietnam, said obviously the depreciation of dong would increase the cost of foreign loans.
“Foreign loans of the Government normally carry long terms. But the immediate impact is a higher amount of local currency the country will use to buy foreign currency for principal and interest payments this year,” he said.
Therefore, what is important is how to make full use of loans to ensure maximum benefits, according to Hai.
The Ministry of Finance said in the report, Vietnam’s becoming a lower middle income country has made it more challenging to access official development assistance (ODA) loans with long terms and low interest rates. The lending rate for World Bank (WB) loans has picked up from 0% to 1.25% per year while the rate for loans of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has risen from 1-1.5% to 2% per year.
As a result, when the interest rates on international capital markets are up, the Government’s debt obligations would increase. Besides, with outstanding foreign loans accounting for around half of the Government’s total outstanding loans, if the exchange rate moves up, it would push up public debts, Government debts and payment obligations correspondingly, according to the report.
Currently, foreign loans are mainly ODA loans and concessional loans from donors with interest rates of 1.6% per year, low capital costs and an average lending term of around 20 years.
On November 11, 2014, the Government successfully issued US$1 billion worth of 10-year Government bonds on international capital markets with an annual coupon of 4.8% to restructure the bonds issued previously, reduce borrowing costs and set a new coupon more beneficial for Vietnam’s economic and financial activities on international markets.
On Tuesday afternoon, the central bank revised up the inter-bank exchange rate between the Vietnam dong and the greenback from VND21,246 to VND21,458 per dollar. With a trading band of 1% on either side, the price of the U.S. dollar is allowed to move in the range of VND21,243 and VND21,673.
After the new exchange rate took effect, banks raised the selling price of the greenback to VND21,500-21,515 on January 7 morning but many lowered the price to VND21,470-21,480 in the afternoon.
Đăng ký: VietNam News