The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has used
around 130 trillion dong to buy $6.23 billion worth of foreign currencies from
banking systems for the national reserve.
The
central bank has also sold some $100 million for the banking system, SBV
Governor Nguyen Van Binh said at a recent meeting with the chairpersons and
general directors of 14 Vietnamese commercial banks.
Vietnam’s
foreign exchange reserves as of mid-March jumped 25-27 percent over the end of
last year, said the central bank governor in a press conference early last
month. Governor Binh then said the forex reserve surged 50 percent in 2011 over
2010.
Vietnam’s
forex reserve was at $13.5 billion, equivalent to the payments for six weeks of
imports following the International Monetary Fund’s norm, in the middle of last
year, according to the IMF’s data.
The
reserve had shrunk to about $10 billion by the end of 2010, said then Minister
of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc.
The SBV
today held the benchmark rate at 20,828 dong a dollar for the 15th week in a
row, the longest streak of keeping the rate unchanged this year.
Liquidity
constraints eased
The
liquidity situation of banks has significantly improved over the end of 2011,
said Binh at the meeting.
Interest
rates on the interbank market have declined dramatically, with the overnight
rate dropping to 6 percent a year.
This is
the basis for the expected downward trend of interest rates in the coming
months, he told Sai Gon Dau Tu Tai Chinh newspaper.
At the
meeting, the central bank also required commercial banks to announce packages
for the lowering of interest rates and report the situation to the Monetary
Policy Department before April 12.
To
facilitate lending, SBV will consider delisting some content to reduce certain
restrictions for non-preferable lending, including real estate and consumer
loans.
The
central bank has also planned to reduce the risk ratio for property-backed and
securities-backed lending from 250 percent to 150 percent and raise the
loan/deposit of banks from 80 percent to 90 percent, and of financial firms
from 85 percent to 100 percent.
This
was one important aspect of the draft to amend and supplement some clauses of
Circular No 13/2010/TT-NHNN dated back to May 20, 2010. As scheduled, the
amended circular will be effective from June 1, 2012.
The
Central bank will soon issue the document to expand lending activities of
commercial banks and anti-unfair competition, and encourage banks to detect
cases of offering depositing rates over the ceiling of 13 percent, pledging to
handle those cases seriously.
The
central bank will continue maintaining the interest rate cap, while considering
the abolishment of the interest rate ceiling if objective conditions are met in
the end of Q2 or the beginning of Q3.
It had
previously planned to reduce benchmark interest rates by 1 percent every
quarter, expecting rates to ease to 10 percent by year-end, according to
newswire VnExpress.
SBV
will lower the deposit interest rate cap by another 1 percent to 12 percent
thanks to more stable macroeconomic indicators, slowing inflation, and improved
bank liquidity, VnExpress quoted Do Thi Nhung, deputy head of the SBV's
Monetary Policy Department, as saying.
Vietnam's
credit growth as of March 20, 2012 was negative 2.13 percent, according to the
report of Vietnam National Financial Supervisory Commission (NFSC).
Tuoi
Tre
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