Attending and directing the Conference: Mr. Le Minh Khai, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister; Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, Member of the Party Central Committee, Governor of SBV; Mr. Dao Minh Tu, Standing Deputy Governor of SBV. Besides that, there were representatives of central ministries, branches, People’s Committees in 63 provinces and cities; leaders of business associations, commercial banks, units of the SBV center, SBV branches in provinces and cities.
Overview of the conference
Efforts to support enterprises and people
Speaking at the conference, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong – Governor of SBV said that in the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the socio-economic life of most countries around the world, including Vietnam. Governments have taken many measures to support the economy. The world is facing the risk of global inflation and rising commodity prices leading many countries to adopt tight monetary policies in response the the new circumstances.
Vietnam also has to deal with the serious impacts of the pandemic. Through difficult times, with the direction of the Party and Government, there have been many solutions to remove difficulties for the economy. In particular, the banking industry with its own resources has actively implemented many policies and solutions on currency, credit, interest rates and payments to support customers and the economy to overcome difficulties of the pandemic. Then, recovering production and business and stabilizing life.
Mr. Dao Minh Tu said that SBV has synchronously and flexibly operated monetary policy tools, closely coordinated with fiscal policy and other macro policies to control inflation, stabilize the currency and foreign exchange markets, ensure the safety of the credit institutions system, contribute to maintaining macroeconomic stability; promulgate circulars allowing credit institutions to restructure debt repayment terms, exempt or reduce loan interest rates, maintain debt groups, and create conditions for customers in difficulties to temporarily extend or postpone due debts and not be transferred to other groups. They can access loans to recover production and business.
As a result, by June 30, 2022, the credit of the economy reached over VND 11.4 quadrillion, up 9.35% over the same period (in 2021, it increased by 6.47%); capital mobilization reached over VND 11.8 quadrillion, up 4.51% compared to the end of 2021 (in 2021, increasing by 4.09%). Credit structure continues to focus capital on production and business sectors, especially priority areas; credit for potential risk areas is controlled. Credit institutions have restructured the repayment term, keeping the accumulated debt group unchanged at VND 709,038 billion, the total amount of interest exempted, reduced and lowered for customers affected by the COVID-19 epidemic has reached over 50,000 billion so far.
Besides the management solutions in recent time, in order to support the recovery of enterprises, cooperatives, business households and perform assigned tasks, SBV has submitted to the Government for promulgation Decree 31/2022/ND- The Government dated May 20th, 2022 on interest rate support from the state budget for loans of enterprises, cooperatives, business households. The Governor of SBV issued Circular 03/2022/TT-NHNN in the same time May 20, 2022 guiding commercial banks to implement,
According to the Deputy Governor, this is a policy to use the state budget on a large scale implemented through the commercial banking system. At the beginning from the drafting process, SBV actively coordinated and discussed carefully, closely with ministries, branches, commercial banks through many meetings as well as collecting written opinions to develop and complete Decrees and guiding circulars, with the goal of supporting businesses, cooperatives, business households reduce costs to overcome difficulties, stabilize and develop production and business, creating a foundation and driving force for economic development. At the same time, ensuring the principles of fairness, publicity and transparency, identifying the right objective to support, creating maximum conditions for enterprises, cooperatives and business households to limit mistakes in the process of implementing, budgeting and supporting interest rate settlement.
Mr. Le Minh Khai – Deputy Prime Minister directs at the Conference
Need the cooperation of ministries, branches and SBV
Speaking at the Conference, Mr. Le Minh Khai emphasized that in the coming time, SBV needs to continue directing, regularly monitoring, supervising and evaluating the results of the implementation of interest rate support from the state budget for loans of enterprises, cooperatives and business households to promptly propose effective solutions, stick to reality and remove difficulties and obstacles in the process of organizing the project according to the spirit of the Resolution
Besides that, relevant ministries and branches continue to closely coordinate with SBV and the banking sector to effectively implement the interest rate support policy.
In particular, the Ministry of Planning and Investment timely handled difficulties and problems related to subjects of interest rate support during the Program implementation; submitting to the competent authority to supplement/allocate public investment plan capital according to regulations so that SBV has a basis to announce the official interest rate support limit for commercial banks.
The Ministry of Finance ensures adequate and timely funding sources for interest rate support, supports and creates favorable conditions for commercial banks in the process of making estimates and finalizing the interest rate support amounts.
The Ministry of Construction urges localities to soon publicize the list of projects to build social housing, housing for workers, and renovate old apartment buildings with interest rate support on their website for commercial banks so they can actively approach and lend the interest rate support following to the regulations.
The Ministry of Information and Communications, newspapers and radio stations coordinate in promoting policies to a large number of enterprises, cooperatives and business households eligible for interest rate support; the associations focus on propagating the policy of lending interest rate support to all levels, sectors, members, people and enterprises to know, organize the implementation and supervision, ensure the right objectives, the right subjects and contribute to improving the effectiveness of policy implementation.
The People’s Committees of the provinces and cities direct the departments, agencies and branches in the area to coordinate with the banking sector in the locality in the process of policy implementation; promoting the implementation of activities to connect banks – enterprises to promptly grasp and handle arising difficulties and problems in order to improve the efficiency of policy implementation.
On the commercial banks side, it is necessary to implement interest rate support according to the provisions of Decree No. 31/2022/ND-CP of the Government and Circular 03/2022/TT-NHNN of SBV throughout the system; promoting communication work; ensuring the implementation of interest rate support following to regulations, for the right subjects and for the right purposes.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong – Governor of SBV speaks at the Conference
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong – Governor of SBV speaks to receive the direction of Mr. Le Minh Khai that SBV will work with ministries and sectors to implement Decree 31/2022/ND-CP dated May 20th, 2022 following to the spirit of Resolution 11 of the Government, especially the direction of the Deputy Prime Minister related to the issue of closely monitoring and promptly removing obstacles in the implementation process, ensuring the effective implementation of the interest rate support package.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong also suggested that credit institutions stick to Circular 03/2022/TT-NHNN to promptly reflect on difficulties and obstacles in the implementation process, accompany enterprises and guide them to understand the supported package. Within units of SBV center and provinces, it is necessary to monitor and actively coordinate with local departments, agencies and sectors to ensure that the interest rate support package is effectively and practically implemented.
Ensuring sufficient support, right objectives
Mr. Dao Minh Tu – Deputy Governor of SBV informed that SBV has urged commercial banks to register for interest rate support plans according to regulations. Up to now, commercial banks have completed the registration of interest rate support plans, SBV has summarized and proposed the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance to report to the competent authorities to assign additional annual public investment plans 2022 (nearly VND 16,035 billion), arranging public investment plan in 2023 (over VND 23,965 billion). Meanwhile, SBV announced the expected interest rate support limit in 2022 to each commercial bank for early implementation.
At the same time, in order to support commercial banks to implement the policy, SBV received, synthesized and answered all questions in any form, both in writing and through direct communication, by phone, text message and email. SBV has issued a document 4593/NHNN-TD dated July 5, 2022 to answer more than 20 issues within the scope and management functions of the SBV regarding the scope of regulation, principles, conditions and deadlines methods of interest rate support, implementation of estimates, settlement, recovery of interest rate support amounts, management of interest rate support limits. Particularly for questions related to beneficiaries of interest rate support, SBV has compiled and submitted documents to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Construction to answer for commercial banks.
Mr. Dao Minh Tu emphasized that this interest rate support program has a large scale, nationwide deployment, a large number of commercial banks participate, so in order to successfully carry out the political tasks assigned by the National Assembly and the Government with effective and efficient practical and pervasive to the whole economy, SBV requested ministries, branches, central agencies, localities, commercial banks, and customers to continue closely coordinating to implement synchronously the tasks assigned to them in Decree 31/2022/ND-CP.
Mr. Dao Minh Tu said that in the coming time, SBV will continue to closely monitor macroeconomic developments, domestic and international money markets to actively manage monetary, credit and interest rate policies flexibly in order to control inflation, stabilize the macro-economy, thereby creating favorable conditions to support economy recovery and development, implement the interest rate support program from the state budget. Meanwhile, SBV closely coordinate with relevant ministries and branches to promptly answer questions of commercial banks; implementing the notification of interest rate support limits, payment and settlement of interest rate support quickly, creating maximum convenience for commercial banks; strengthening coordination with agencies inside and outside the industry to inform and communicate about interest rate support policies, helping enterprises, cooperatives and business households to understand and quickly access information on interest rate support policies from the state budget through the commercial banking system.
At the same time, focusing on inspection and supervision of interest rate support loans of commercial banks, ensuring that the policy is deployed to the right beneficiaries.
At the conference, Mr. Tran Duy Dong – Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment answered questions related to subjects receiving 2% interest rate support when borrowing capital; Mr. Nguyen Duc Chi – Deputy Minister of Finance informed about the implemented contents of the Ministry of Finance.
Leaders of SBV together with ministries, branches and units continue listening to the opinions of provinces, commercial banks, representatives of the enterprises community and answering questions related to the interest rate support program, so that the policy can be implemented uniformly in the industry and nationwide.
2 subject groups are supported with interest rates
Mr. Dao Minh Tu said that the beneficiaries of interest rate support are enterprises, cooperatives and business households with the purpose of borrowing capital from these groups: aviation, transportation and warehousing; tourism, accommodation and catering services; educations; agriculture, forestry, fisheries; manufacturing and processing industry; software publishing, computer programming and related activities, information service activities; including construction activities directly serving these economic sectors, except construction activities for real estate business purposes.
Mr. Dao Minh Tu – Standing Deputy Governor of SBV speaks at the Conference
Implementing projects of building social houses for workers and renovating old apartments.
The interest rate support is 2%/year. The term is calculated from the date of loan disbursement to the time when the customer pays off the loan principal and/or interest as agreement between commercial banks and customers suitable with the announced interest rate support funding source, but not beyond December 31, 2023.
Interest rate supported loans have to meet normal loan conditions which are signed for loan agreements and disbursed in the period from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023, using capital for the right purpose, not yet receiving interest rate support from the state budget according to other policies.
