Gov't urges banks to lower lending interest rates for SMEs

He made the call on July 6 while presiding a meeting with the Viet Nam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to seek solutions to addressing challenges facing SMEs. 

The Association reported that SMEs have been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, declining orders, slow sales, and high input costs.

Nearly 60 percent of the 10,000 interviewed SMEs said their biggest problem is the shortage of orders and 51.1 percent find it difficult to access to capital; and the remainders. 

Given the situation, the Government has decided on the extension of tax and land rent payment deadlines; tax reduction or exemption, fees and charges (totaling about 200 trillion VND, or US$ 8.4 billion, the facilitation of the corporate bond and real estate markets; promotion of administrative reforms and improvement of the business climate; assistance for businesses to recover fast and develop sustainably; and establishment of 26 working groups led by the Government members to work with localities.

The Government chief urged banking sector to take stronger actions to implement the Government’s resolutions on removing obstacles to production and business activities and creating jobs, increase the money supply, aligning credit growth with credit demand, and reducing interest rates, especially lending ones.

The banking sector was also asked to accelerate the disbursement of the VND 120 trillion credit package for social housing development and the VND 10 trillion package for wood and fisheries businesses, and launch more consumption stimulation measures.

He also underlined the importance of speeding up trade promotion activities, implementation of FTAs and market diversification to resolve order shortages and deployment of consumption stimulation campaigns.

Both the Government and the State Bank of Viet Nam have requested commercial banks to reduce interest rates. Many commercial banks have deployed preferential interest rate loan packages to increase credit access./.