Commercial banks have stimulated credit demand right from the start of the year to support economic growth.

Bank credit has significantly contributed to agricultural and rural development in Ho Chi Minh City, Nguyen Duc Lenh, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCM City office, told a conference on October 17.

Bank credit in August is showing signs of recovery after a decline in July, according to the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).

After a slump, bank credit in Ho Chi Minh City has picked up again and is expected to keep rising for the rest of the year since demand for funds is usually high at year-end, the State Bank of Vietnam has said.

After declining in the first two months of this year, credit of the banking industry in March increased by 0.26% compared to the end of 2023 to about 13.6 quadrillion VND, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) reported.

Total loans outstanding as of November 30 at credit institutions in Ho Chi Minh City were worth over 3.4 quadrillion VND (140.15 billion USD), a 1.3% increase from the previous month, according to the central bank.

In 2021, corporate bond yields were at their lowest level in history at just 7.86 percent a year. The interest rate may have created a bottom and will support corporate bond yields inching up in 2022.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has flexibly operated monetary policy tools to maintain liquidity for the banking system, contributing to stabilising and recovering credit growth in the context of unpredictable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts have forecast bank credit growth in the second quarter to reach 3.5-4 percent, much higher than the rate in the first quarter.

The real estate market has slowed in the first months of 2019, which experts attributed to limited bank credit sources for the market.

Amid widespread expectations that the central bank will continue to pursue its tight credit policy, especially to risky areas like real estate, in 2019 property developers are looking at other sources for funds.

Investment inflows into the property sector has surged, especially credit from banks, said Nguyen Tran Nam, former Deputy Minister of Construction and Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association.

Bank credit growth so far this year stands at 7 percent year-on-year, outstripping deposit growth, which is only 5 percent, Dau Tu Chung Khoan newspaper reported.