According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Lenh, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Ho Chi Minh City branch, the current lending interest rate is not more than 4%/year, creating conditions for businesses to expand and grow production and business activities, especially in the last months of the year, when the demand for capital to prepare goods and invest in production is very large.
In Ho Chi Minh City, 17 banks have registered to participate in the program to connect with businesses, with a total capital of more than VND 509,800 billion since the beginning of 2024. The disbursement amount to date has reached more than VND 425,600 billion, equal to 83.4% of the scale of the support package committed by banks.
Current short-term loan interest rates are no more than 4%/year, helping businesses focus resources on year-end production and business. (Photo: TL)
In the export sector alone, in October 2024, the total outstanding loans in VND reached more than VND 105,300 billion, accounting for about 6.21% of the total outstanding loans in 5 priority sectors in the area (including loans for small and medium enterprises; exports; agriculture and rural areas; supporting industries and high-tech enterprises).
However, many businesses still complain about difficulty in accessing credit capital.
Why businesses still complain about capital
At the Dialogue Conference between enterprises and the Ho Chi Minh City government organized by the State Bank of Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City branch and the Ho Chi Minh City Investment and Trade Promotion Center on October 31, many enterprises continued to hope to receive preferential loans from banks to meet production needs.
Mr. Bill Nguyen - Business Development Director of Cainver Import-Export Company in District 1, said that the company mainly operates in exporting wooden furniture. Although the general market has decreased in the past 1-2 years, the demand for furniture from customers in the European and American markets is very high. However, to borrow preferential loans, his company is quite struggling.
The reason is that export enterprises often use export contracts as collateral and the preferential interest rate period is often shorter than the sales period. Specifically, the order he signed with his partner is for 6-12 months, but the preferential interest rate is usually short-term, 3-6 months.
He said that many orders take more than a year to complete and collect payment, so the time businesses have to pay floating interest rates is quite long. The interest rate these businesses have to pay is usually 7-9%/year.
"Businesses want to access capital with preferential and stable interest rates from banks, instead of only enjoying preferential interest rates for a short period of time and then having to pay floating interest rates according to the market. Such high capital costs make production costs very high," said Mr. Bill Nguyen.
Mr. To Ngoc Ngoi, General Director of VinaFor Saigon Jco, is worried that land prices in Ho Chi Minh City are so high that businesses cannot survive. (Photo: PQ)
For export enterprises, it is difficult to qualify for loans, and for small and medium enterprises, it is many times more difficult.
Ms. Le Thi Thuy Van, CEO of a company implementing a public toilet project in Ho Chi Minh City, said that the company is having a hard time finding capital to develop the project. The reason is that the invested project has not been able to recover its capital, and if it wants to do a new project, it does not have capital, but it does not have access to credit, so for the past 6 years, the company has been struggling.
At the Conference connecting businesses and banks 2 weeks ago, Mr. Tu Tien Phat, General Director of Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), said that the problems of small and medium enterprises that make it difficult for them to access loans are related to mortgaged assets, other procedures such as cash flow, transparency of business operations, etc.
According to Mr. Phat, ACB has committed VND5,000 billion with an interest cost of about 5% to support businesses. In addition, this bank also has a green credit program of VND4,000 billion with short-term and medium-long-term lending interest rates from 5.7%/year.
Not only lending, the bank also provides comprehensive consulting and support solutions for businesses, helping them access capital more conveniently to recover and boost production in the coming time, especially in the last two months of the year.
Qualified businesses do not want to borrow capital
Sharing at the Conference connecting banks and enterprises organized by the State Bank and the Department of Industry and Trade of Ho Chi Minh City earlier, Mr. Tran Viet Anh - Chairman of the Thu Duc City Business Association, CEO of Nam Thai Son Import-Export Corporation, said that in reality, now, if enterprises have orders and good production plans, banks will lend money, and the approval of loan conditions is not too difficult. However, the desired interest rate is very difficult, so enterprises still consider and choose the most preferential bank before daring to borrow.
“Businesses are very cautious about borrowing capital. We just want to sell products and get money to turn around production, we don’t want to borrow more, because borrowing more will lead to increased costs,” said Mr. Viet Anh.
At a time when raw material prices are high but orders are few, and selling prices are difficult to increase, businesses are reluctant to borrow capital for fear of increasing costs. (Illustration: HL)
According to Mr. Viet Anh, businesses with stable production and business and stable customers at this time often do not want to borrow more capital. If borrowing, businesses focus on approaching banks with good policies, good interest rates, and long-term support. But finding a bank with good policies is not easy.
The way to limit the lack of production capital is for businesses to try to approach and sell to customers who make large deposits or pay a portion of the money in advance.
Not only do high capital costs make businesses reluctant to invest, but rising land prices also make it difficult for businesses to recalculate production costs. Mr. To Ngoc Ngoi, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors - General Director of Saigon Forest Products Production and Import-Export Company - VinaFor Saigon Jco, said that the current land prices in Ho Chi Minh City are so high that businesses cannot survive. Because high land prices push up product input prices, it is very difficult for businesses.
Mr. Thoi said that for the same product line, if compared to the production cost of Malaysian enterprises, the production cost of Vietnam is higher. Part of the reason for the increase in cost is the high land price, while at this time, Ho Chi Minh City has started to apply a new land price that is many times higher than the old land price.
He said this is a big disadvantage and orders that are already rare will easily fall into the hands of competitors if there are no timely support policies and sharing with businesses.
Also an exporter, Mr. Bill Nguyen said that the increase in land prices clearly increased production costs. At this time, businesses have almost finalized their production and business plans for 2024 and are starting for 2025. The market has shown positive signs of recovery as customers in demanding markets such as Europe and the US are returning to place orders. Businesses are in dire need of resources, especially cheap capital, to get ready for 2025 right from the beginning of the year.
Since the beginning of the year, the State Bank of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City branch, together with the Department of Industry and Trade, Business Associations and districts, have organized 31 dialogue conferences and signed loan agreements.
Of which, direct loans were signed at the conference with a total amount of more than 58,100 billion VND to 4,495 corporate customers and production and business households.
Mr. Hoang Minh Ngoc, Deputy General Director of Agribank, said that Agribank is offering 6 preferential credit packages for businesses. In particular, the special package for the group of agricultural and aquatic products, processing and importing raw materials with a scale of 20,000 billion VND has an interest rate of only 2.6%/year for a term of less than 3 months. And he hopes that businesses, business households and cooperatives will learn and connect with the bank.
Currently, the savings interest rate at Agribank for 1-2 month terms is 2.2%/year; 3-5 month terms is 2.7%/year, 6-11 month terms is 3.2%/year; 12-18 month terms is 4.7%/year, the highest 24 month term is 4.8%/year.
Thus, the lending interest rate of 2.6%/year for the credit package that Agribank launched to support agricultural enterprises is lower than the mobilization interest rate at this bank for a term of 3-5 months.
Source: https://vtcnews.vn/vi-sao-doanh-nghiep-thieu-von-nhung-ngai-vay-ngan-hang-ar904951.html
Comment (0)