In order to accompany and share difficulties with people and businesses, resolutely implement the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister to increase access to credit, from the beginning of 2023 to now, on September 21, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) organized the Conference "Connecting Banks - Enterprises in Hanoi" to remove difficulties between banks and businesses and the economy.

In her opening speech, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong - Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam said that the economy is going through an extremely difficult and challenging period, causing low capital absorption capacity of enterprises, which leads to slow credit growth.

The Governor said that credit is a very important area. According to statistics, credit in the first 8 months of 2023 increased by 5.33%, while credit for the whole year of 2022 increased by more than 14%. Therefore, Ms. Hong said that there are many reasons for this that need to be analyzed.

The State Bank's report stated that as of September 15, 2023, credit in the entire economy reached nearly VND 12.6 million billion, up 5.56%, slightly up from 5.33% at the end of August.

In addition, after implementing solutions to reduce lending interest rates for existing outstanding loans and new loans up to now, credit institutions committed to reducing total interest by about VND 19,000 billion.

In particular, for the real estate sector, the State Bank has directed and requested credit institutions to create favorable conditions for real estate project investors and home buyers to access credit when fully meeting the credit granting conditions as prescribed.

Accordingly, BIDV and Agribank have signed credit contracts to finance three social housing projects in Phu Tho, Quang Ninh and Bac Ninh provinces with a disbursement amount of VND82.7 billion/VND120,000 billion supported under Resolution 33 of the Government.

Regarding the program to support the removal of difficulties for some key agricultural products (rice in the Mekong Delta, seafood, coffee), the State Bank said that up to now, 13 commercial banks have registered to participate in the program and have provided loans with a disbursement turnover of nearly VND 5,500 billion (equal to 37% of the total committed loan amount under the program of VND 15,000 billion), lending to 2,000 customers.

This agency has also issued a policy to restructure debt repayment terms and maintain debt groups according to Circular 02, to support customers facing difficulties in all industries and fields to extend debt repayment periods without being transferred to bad debt groups and to access new loans to serve production and business activities and serve life.

By the end of August 2023, the total accumulated debt value (principal and interest) with restructured repayment terms and maintained debt groups was nearly VND 121,000 billion, with nearly 124,000 customers having their repayment terms restructured .