“It will be a tough year with many challenges,” SBV deputygovernor Nguyen Thi Hong told the media in HCM City on January 25.
“Every move in international markets would directly impact the country. TheSBV will strongly focus on the stability of the economy, continue resolvingbusinesses’ problems, control inflation, and issue guidelines for amendments tothe Law of Credit Institutions,” she said.
It would follow a pro-active and flexible monetary policy andcut interest rates, besides stabilizing the foreign exchange and gold markets,and the monetary policy in 2018 would work in close conjunction with fiscal andother policies to control inflation and support reasonable economic growth, shepromised.
In 2017, credit growth focused on serving production(increase of 12-13 percent for agriculture and rural development), automationand engineering (26 percent), high-tech (20 percent), supporting industries (22percent) and foreign trade (16 percent).
“Lending next year would focus on the Government’s prioritysectors such as agriculture, exports, supporting industries, small- andmedium-sized enterprises and hi-tech firms. Lending to risky sectors such asreal estate, securities and consumer lending will be limited," Hong said.
She said to reach this year’s credit growth target of 17percent, the SBV must closely align with the government’s macro-economicpolicies to make suitable adjustments from time to time.
Vietnam’s foreign reserves have risen to a record 53 billionUSD, and the SBV has said it would try to increase them further besidesstabilising the foreign exchange market.
Measures will be also taken to stabilise the monetary marketand ensure liquidity in the banking system, it has said, adding it willcontinue to restructure credit institutions and settle non-performing loans.
Hong said the successful monetary management policy last yearalso contributed to keeping foundation inflation at 1.41 percent, helping thebanking system cut lending interest rates by 0.5-1 percentage points.-VNA