Illustrative image. (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Four commercial banks signed
agreements to provide loans worth a total of 4.66 trillion VND (200
million USD) to 20 companies operating in Ho Chi Minh City-based industrial
parks and export processing zones at a meeting connecting banks and businesses
held last week.
The agreement is designed to help companies access credit in a
timely manner in the context of increasing capital demand.
Hua Quoc Hung, head of the HCM City Export Processing and
Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), said demand for funds among businesses was
very high in this recovery period after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Companies have high demand for preferential credit to
restore and expand production, but access to these sources of capital is still
limited,” he said.
According to the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City Branch, this
year, 13 banks in the city have registered to participate in the loan programme
and plan to provide credit of 424 trillion VND (18.2 billion USD) at interest
rates of less than 4.5% per year for short-term loans and around 9% per year
for medium and long-term loans, as well as offer other support such as reducing
interest rates on old loans and rolling them over, and increasing credit
limits.
Nguyen Duc Lenh, deputy director of SBV’s HCM City branch, said
the banking sector in the city had adopted many solutions to help meet the
capital needs of enterprises, co-operatives and business households.
The programme to connect lenders and businesses alone had seen
nearly 100 trillion VND (4.3 billion USD) disbursed in the first half of the
year to help enterprises, co-operatives and business households revive
production and trading, he said.
Hung said that since 2012, Hepza had cooperated with the SBV’s HCM
City branch and a number of commercial banks to organise a programme to
facilitate businesses in accessing financial resources at suitable interest
rates.
This also helped banks better understand enterprises in industrial
production, thereby simplifying lending procedures, he said.
“For their part, commercial banks are also actively approaching
small and medium sized enterprises to disburse loans in accordance with the
Government’s preferential policies, especially enterprises in priority fields,
and those participating in the regional linkage model and value chain
links,” he said./.
