In response to Da Nang’s “Year for Business 2014” programme, many of the city’s commercial banks last year issued numerous preferential credit policies for local businesses to help them develop their production activities.

The Director of the Da Nang branch of the Military Joint Stock Commercial Bank (MB), Mr Nguyen Van Dong, said that his bank last year offered a credit package worth 10 trillion VND to local small and medium–sized enterprises (SMEs).  Borrowers were required to have feasible business plans and stable production activities.  In particular, the bank provided local SMEs with a “superspeed” package which allowed them to access loans within 10 hours of their lending procedures being submitted to the bank.

A transaction at a local bank

In a similar vein, the city’s branch of Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) has offered various preferential credit packages. The branch’s Director, Mr Hoang Thanh Hai, revealed that his unit gave loans, worth over 100 billion VND in total, to help local businesses buy their production means.  A focus was also on offering USD loans, totalling over 11.75 million USD to foreign direct investment (FDI) and import and export companies.  In addition, local distributors of consumer goods were offered loans totalling over 1 trillion VND.

The local branch of the Viet Nam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) was actively involved in supporting the implementation of the programme.  The branch’s Deputy Director, Mr Doan Phuc, remarked that 200 out of last year’s 1,000 customers were allowed to extend their bank debt payments.  Thanks to this, the pressure of their overdue debts was relieved and they then felt secure enough to develop their production activities, which helped to create more employment for job-seekers as well as contributed significantly to the city’s tax collections.

This year, the city’s branch of the State Bank of Viet Nam will continue to instruct local commercial banks to offer more preferential credit policies for local businesses which are in need of loans to overcome their difficulties.