Banks urged to lower lending rates to stimulate growth

The move aims to increase credit access for people and businesses and stimulate economic growth over the next months.

The Government chief tasked the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) to direct credit organizations to provide capital focusing on manufacturing and production and other prioritized areas such as consumption, investment, exports, digital transformation, green conversion, climate change adaption, circular economy, science, technology and innovation.

Meanwhile, credit organizations should reduce costs, simplify administrative procedures, enhance the application of information technology and digital transformation while launching preferential interest rate loan packages to accelerate the development of the growth engines.

The central bank said it targets a credit growth of about 15 percent in 2024, but the goal can be adjusted to make it suitable with the actual situation and the economic developments.

In 2023, Viet Nam's credit growth reached around 13.5 percent although unprecedented developments of the global economy posed formidable challenges to the country's monetary policy./.