Credit boosts economic growth in central coastal region

On April 3, in Ha Tinh, the State Bank of Vietnam held a Conference on Promoting Bank Credit to Contribute to Economic Growth in Region 8.

Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Quang Dung and Chairman of the People's Committee of Ha Tinh province Tran Bao Ha co-chaired the Conference.

This is the 12th Conference in a series of 15 Conferences organized by the State Bank at State Bank branches in the regions to exchange and discuss solutions to achieve credit growth targets, contributing to promoting economic growth.

Credit is booming

Three provinces in Region 8 (Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Quang Binh) belong to the North Central and Central Coast regions, in the East-West economic corridor; with a long and beautiful coastline favorable for tourism development; deep-water seaports favorable for import and export trade, coastal industry; aquaculture, seafood exploitation and new marine economic sectors.

In recent times, all three provinces have had outstanding achievements in attracting FDI, with major projects on seaports, industrial parks and wind power, with economic growth at a fairly high level, creating favorable conditions for the banking sector to boost credit growth, coordinate with related sectors to actively support the implementation of socio-economic development tasks of the provinces.

According to Acting Director of the State Bank of Vietnam, Region 8 Branch, Nguyen Thi Thu Thu, as of February 28, the management network of the State Bank of Vietnam, Region 8 Branch, has 253 credit institutions and credit institution branches with various types of credit institutions, including 133 banking units, 115 grassroots People's Credit Funds, 5 branches of small, limited liability, one-member charitable microfinance institutions and 495 transaction offices.

There is also a branch of the Deposit Insurance of the North Central region, operating for the benefit of depositors, coordinating with the State Bank in supervising the safe operations of credit institutions.

Acting Director of State Bank Branch Region 8 Nguyen Thi Thu Thu reported at the Conference.

In recent times, the banking sector has actively promoted credit growth to meet the capital needs for production and business of people and businesses in the region and has achieved quite positive results.

According to a report from the State Bank, by the end of February 2025, outstanding loans of credit institutions in Region 8 reached VND 535,688 billion, an increase of VND 7,957 billion, equal to 1.5% compared to the end of 2024 (including outstanding loans of the Development Bank), accounting for about 33% of the total outstanding loans of the North Central and Central Coast regions.

Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Quang Dung also said that with drastic solutions implemented from the beginning of the year, credit growth has shown signs of improvement compared to the same period in 2024, accordingly, as of March 25, outstanding credit balance of the economy reached 16 million billion VND, up 2.5% compared to the end of 2024, up 17.65% compared to the same period in 2024 (while in the same period in 2024 it only grew by about 0.26%).

However, in the context of complicated developments in the world economy, especially most recently when US President Donald Trump announced import tariffs (reciprocal tariffs) with dozens of economies; in which Vietnam is subject to the highest tax of 46%, it will impact the economy, thereby posing many difficulties and challenges for banking activities as well as the management of the State Bank.

Deputy Governor of the State Bank Pham Quang Dung speaks at the Conference.

Therefore, Deputy Governor Pham Quang Dung stated that in order to achieve the credit growth target of 16% (outstanding debt increased by VND 2.5 million billion compared to 2024) contributing to achieving the economic growth targets of the whole country (at least 8%) and 3 provinces of the Region (8% -10.5%) in 2025, the entire banking industry in general and in Region 8 in particular need to resolutely implement many solutions; in which, in addition to balancing and ensuring credit "supply", it is necessary to closely coordinate with businesses and people to contribute to promoting the "demand" factor and promoting the connection between credit supply and demand, connecting banks and businesses to promptly grasp difficulties and problems and have appropriate solutions.

Promoting bank-business connection

The need to further promote dialogues to increase connections between banks and businesses was also one of the issues mentioned by many businesses at the Conference.

According to Director of Lao Viet International Port Joint Stock Company Nguyen Anh Tuan, as a business operating in Ha Tinh in the field of logistics, the business is particularly interested in capital sources from credit institutions. During the borrowing process, businesses and banks always share with each other from the services that both parties are using to each other's management models.

“We always emphasize the need to promote connections between businesses and banks because in my opinion, only with good connections can we develop,” Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan shared.

In addition to connectivity, businesses are also very concerned about interest rates. Businesses expressed their hope that the State Bank would continue to have support policies for logistics ports so that businesses can access credit packages with lower and more stable interest rates.

As a customer of Agribank since 2016, General Director of Quoc Viet Construction Investment Joint Stock Company Nguyen Van Dieu acknowledged: over the past 8 years, businesses have seen positive changes in Agribank when the bank's interest rates are always lower than those of other credit institutions and the loan approval rate is also high, thereby helping businesses to clear capital sources, providing timely capital for businesses in production and business activities.

Conference Overview.

However, in order to further support businesses, Mr. Nguyen Van Dieu also recommended that banks continue to invest more in technology, developing modern digital banking platforms to help businesses transact faster, more securely and more effectively. At the same time, banks also need to provide more flexible payment solutions to better manage cash flow.

“It is especially necessary to organize a more regular dialogue mechanism between banks and businesses. Banks need to regularly organize periodic forums so that businesses can have specific feedback on the applicable policies and regulations, thereby proposing more suitable solutions for each development stage,” a representative of Quoc Viet enterprise proposed.

At the Conference, the Deputy Governor of the State Bank also said that in the coming time, in order to promptly remove difficulties for businesses and promote credit in the area, the State Bank directed the regional State Bank to continue to promote the implementation of tasks and solutions in Directives No. 01, 02 and other directives of the State Bank; continue to monitor and direct credit institutions in the area to maintain stable deposit interest rates and drastically implement measures to strive to reduce lending interest rates; seriously implement the disclosure of information on lending interest rates and preferential interest rate credit programs (if any) to customers.

Along with that, the State Bank also directed credit institutions' Headquarters and branches in the area to effectively implement the directions of the Government, the Prime Minister, the Governor of the State Bank, and local State agencies on monetary and banking credit solutions; the headquarters of credit institutions need to promptly complete the allocation of business targets so that branches can proactively implement measures to mobilize and increase credit growth to meet the plan; simplify credit granting processes and procedures, apply digital transformation to credit granting processes, reduce costs to reduce lending interest rates, create favorable conditions for people and businesses to access bank credit capital;...

In addition to the solutions of the banking sector, the representative of the State Bank also emphasized the need for coordination among relevant Departments, Boards, Sectors, and associations in the region to deploy effective and synchronous solutions and policies to promote production and business, develop the market, and stimulate domestic consumption.

Organize trade promotion of local strengths and specialties; strengthen connections between regional businesses to participate in the supply chains of FDI enterprises and large global enterprises.

Review and evaluate the difficulties and obstacles of enterprises to promptly have solutions to remove them in order to free up resources and save costs for enterprises, closely coordinate with the banking sector in implementing the bank-enterprise connection program to jointly remove difficulties in the fields of land, infrastructure, administrative procedures... to create more favorable conditions for enterprises in the process of implementing procedures related to bank loans to develop production and business.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/tin-dung-thuc-day-tang-truong-kinh-te-duyen-hai-mien-trung-post869877.html