State Bank of Vietnam's headquarters. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) pledgesto continue fostering exchange rate flexibility while maintaining macroeconomicand financial market stability, so as to ease concerns from the US Departmentof Treasury about the country’s currency practices.
Together with its ongoing efforts to modernise monetarypolicy and exchange rate framework, the SBV is committed to further flexiblymanaging exchange rates in line with the state of development of theforeign-exchange market and economic factors to ensure the proper functioningof the market, thus promoting macroeconomic stability, according to the Vietnamesecentral bank.
It held that Vietnam’s exchange rate policy, withinits general monetary policy framework, aims to stabilise the macro-economy andcontrol inflation, not to create an unfair competitive advantage ininternational trade.
Vietnam had been under pressure from the US over itscurrency practices after the Trump administration, in December last year, declared Vietnam a currency manipulator.
In April, the US Department of Treasury removed the labelof currency manipulator for Vietnam, saying it found insufficient evidence thatVietnam was manipulating its currency. The department and the SBV have maintained regular discussions at both high and technical levels on monetary policy, exchange rate andVietnam’s forex market situation in the spirit of goodwill, cooperation andmutual respect.
The SBV’s statement was made following the virtualmeeting between SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong and US Secretary of the TreasuryJanet L. Yellen on July 19, during which they highly spoke ofconstructive coordination between the two sides.
They vowed to maintain close cooperation and goodwill toaddress shared challenges, such as supporting a strong and inclusive recoveryfrom the COVID-19 pandemic./.
