Deputy Governor of State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong (Photo: State Bank of Vietnam)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Record-high foreign reserves will enable Vietnam’scentral bank to keep the dong, the local currency, stable for the rest ofthe year, Bloomberg quoted a central bank official as saying.
With reserve levels at 45 billion USD, “we are confident we will be able tomaintain the dong’s value,” in 2017, Nguyen Thi Hong, Deputy Governor of theState Bank of Vietnam (SBV), said on the sidelines of a meeting in Hanoi lastweekend. “Such a high level of foreign reserves will allow us to step in tostabilise the money market when needed,” she added.
According to Bloomberg, the dong has been one of the most stablecurrencies in Asia this year.
An increase in remittances from Vietnamese living abroad has helped boostforeign reserves this year, which allows the central bank to continue focusingon policies to support economic growth, Nguyen Hoang Minh, deputy head of SBVin HCM City, said in an interview last month.
[Central bank policies expand foreign reserves]
The central bank will ensure lenders have enough liquidity “so that they canlend at lower interest rates,” Hong said. “By helping banks with more cashavailability, we will be able to bring down lending interest rates at bankswithout having to cut our policy rates,” she added.
Vietnam was one of only a handful of Asian nations, whose central bank easedmonetary policy this year, unexpectedly cutting benchmark interest rate for thefirst time in three years in July.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said on October 23 morning that Vietnam isexpected to meet the GDP growth target of 6.7 percent this year. If it canreach the target, it will be the fastest pace since 2007. The economy grew 6.41percent in the nine months through September.-VNS/VNA
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