Vietnam's credit grows 1.6 pct in January

Vietnamese credit in 2016 grew by 18.71 percent compared to the end of 2015. This year, the country targeted a credit growth of 18 percent.
Credit in Vietnamese dong (VND) from the beginning of 2017 to January 31 rose by 1.6 percent, while credit in foreign currencies went up 1.6 percent in the same period, local Vietnam News online newspaper quoted a report by NFSC as saying on Tuesday. In terms of credit structure, short-term lending accounted for 45 percent of total outstanding loan, while medium- and long-term lending made up the rest. The proportion of credit in VND in the total outstanding loan was 91 percent, remaining unchanged compared to January 2016.
According to the commission, there was not much fluctuation in the deposit interest rates in January. However, the market still saw some banks offering interest rates for short-term VND deposits that were up by between 0.1 and 1.2 percentage points compared with the levels offered before the Lunar New Year.
The NFSC attributed the increase in deposit interest rates partly to the regulation that the proportion of short-term loans used for medium- and long-term lending must not exceed 50 percent. The regulation came into effect at the beginning of the year.
Meanwhile, lending interest rates were kept stable. However, according to experts, interest rates are still under pressure, predicting that the deposit and lending interest rates this year would likely increase by 0.5-1 percentage per year.