Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Dong Tien chaired a press conference on the implementation of Resolution No.01/NQ-CP of the Government dated January 3, 2012 in Hanoi on February 14, 2012. The press conference was attended by representatives from several SBV Departments.
In order to implement monetary policy measures in 2012 set in Resolution No. 01/NQ-CP of the Government dated January 3, 2012, the SBV Governor issued Instruction No. 01/CT-NHNN dated February 13, 2012 on implementingmonetary policies and ensuring a safe and sound banking sector and Document No.674/NHNN-CSTT on February 13 on controlling credit activities in 2012.
At the conference, most jounalists focused on the issue of controlling credit growth in the whole year of 2012. Regarding to this issue, Deputy Governor Nguyen Dong Tien announced thatcredit growth quotas for credit institutions are divided into four groups, of which the maximum credit growth rates for the first,second and third groups are 17%, 15% and 8% respectively and the fourthgroup is not allowed to have credit growth. The SBV classification is based on the capital scale, operational efficiency, financial capacity, governance capacity, risk management, control system, compliance with SBV regulations, so on and so forth. Moreover, after 6 months, SBV will revised the performance of each credit institution in order to have a proper classification. For the fourth group (no credit growth), the Deputy Governor asserted that these credit institutions have temporary liquidity problem and are in the process of restructuring, so they have to recover their old debts and provide new loans effectively. Therefore, he also said that the total credit outstanding is unchanged but the credit activity is remained, thus helping these credit institutions to restructure their loans and ensurecredit activities more safely.
Regarding tocredit proportion, the Deputy Governor informed that the loan proportion for the non-productive sector in 2011 was controlled at 11.3%; however, there have beenseveral commercial banks with credit growth in this sector exceeding 16% and SBV would continue to take measures to warn and handle these cases, and control the credit growth in non-priority fields at 16% in 2012. He also informed that the overaching goal of current measures of the Government in general and SBV in particular is to focus on implementing macro-economic tasks, and giving priorities to agricultural development, export and small and medium enterprises while not giving priorities to non-productive sector, including stocks and real estate, but the SBV would also make proper adjustments in 2012. Specifically, for security lending, loans for employees of state companies to buy IPO shares would be excluded from the “discouraged” group; and for the real estate lending, SBV would consider the contribution to macro-economic growth of each specific project in order to provide loans in 2012. In regard of the liquidity of banking sector, SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Dong Tien asserted that this is an important task and the SBV would conduct measures to ensure the banking sector liquidity, and focus on providing capital resources to priority areas in 2012. He also said that in the first months of 2012, the SBV has injected capital through open market in a flexible manner, while re-financing credit institutions when needed, so the liquidity of the banking system is quite good.
He went on the liquidity problem in 2011 was due to legal compliance and irresponsibility of several commercial banks, so in 2012, the SBV would focus on redressing this problem. The SBV Deputy Governor noted: "Banking activities always contain risks, and banking development is based on customers’ trust; therefore, commercial banks have responsibility for preserving that trust. The SBV requires credit institutions to strictly comply with SBV regulations for benefits of themselves and the whole system as well as the whole economy".
Moreover, the SBV continues to conduct monetary policy tools through other measures such as pumping and withdrawing money in circulation, adjusting exchange rate, ensuring liquidity of credit institutions, making a more healthy banking sector, and bringing capital to “right investment address”.
In regard of a mobilizing interest rate competition among credit institutions, Mr. Nguyen Dang Hong, Vice Director of SBV Financial Supervision Agency (FSA) said that there was a competition about mobilizing rates among credit institutions over the past time; however, the SBV strictly and promptly handled those violations by commercial banks. As a result, credit institutions have basically complied with the regulations seriously. He stated that the FSAs at the head quarter and the SBV branches would continue to closely monitor the application of mobilizing rates by credit institutions in their locations and remain a hot line. The SBV would strictly tackle all violations related to ceiling mobilizing rate of credit institutions.
Phuong Dung