Regarding this issue, the State Bank of Vietnam replied to voters in Bac Lieu province as follows:

Agriculture and rural areas are one of the priority areas for investment under the direction of the Government. In order to support the development of agriculture and rural areas, the State Bank of Vietnam has submitted to the Government for promulgation Decree No. 55/2015/ND-CP dated June 9, 2015 on credit policies for the village agricultural sector (amended and supplemented in Decree No. 116/2018/ND-CP dated September 7, 2018), in which there are many preferential policies such as: raising the level of unsecured loans; policies to encourage the development of high-tech agriculture; agricultural production according to the model of linkage and value chain; policy to reduce lending interest rates when people buy insurance in agriculture.....

To facilitate loan interest rates, the State Bank of Vietnam stipulates a ceiling on short-term lending interest rates for priority areas of credit institutions for customers (including agriculture and rural development) at 4.5%/year and the fact that credit institutions are lending at an interest rate of 4.3%/year, lower than the ceiling rate prescribed by the State Bank of Vietnam, at the same time, also implemented many credit programs and policies with preferential interest rates under the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister such as loans to reduce losses in agriculture, loans for agriculture with high technology, clean agriculture, loans for afforestation development, livestock development, loans to poor districts 30a,....

In addition, the State Bank of Vietnam regularly directs credit institutions to: (i) Implement solutions to open up and direct credit capital flows into the agricultural and rural sector, (ii) reviewing and simplifying internal processes and procedures, shortening the loan approval time, creating favorable conditions for customers to access credit; (iii) improve the efficiency of appraisal and credit rating of customers to enhance the possibility of unsecured loans in order to remove difficulties in terms of collateral for customers; (iv) diversify banking products and services suitable for the agricultural sector (such as seasonal loans, linked loans,...) and people in rural areas (such as groups lending)

As a result, credit in the agricultural and rural sector always has a higher growth rate than the overall credit growth of the economy, reaching over VND 2.8 million billion, accounting for 25% of the total outstanding loans of the whole economy with more than 14 million outstanding customers.

Support 2% interest rate in 2022 and 2023 for businesses, cooperatives, business households

In particular, the state budget spends VND 40,000 billion to support 2% of interest rates in 2022 and 2023 for enterprises, cooperatives, and business households (in a number of industries and fields, including the agriculture, forestry and fishery) in order to reduce costs, assist in solving difficulties, and create a force for economic recovery and development.

The State Bank of Vietnam has submitted to the Government for promulgation Decree No. 31/2022/ND-CP on interest rate support from the state budget for loans of enterprises, cooperatives and business households, issued Circular No. 03/2022/TT-NHNN guiding and directing commercial banks to register interest rate support plans and implement them internally.

In addition, the State Bank of Vietnam actively organized the Conference of the whole banking industry; organize a nationwide online conference with the participation of Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai and ministries, branches and localities to widely disseminate information about interest rate support policies to the whole commercial banking system and to each locality; at the same time, direct commercial banks to resolve to implement the program with the highest efficiency so that the policy can quickly come to life, contributing to realizing the goal of recovering, developing production and business, promoting growth drivers, especially important sectors and fields according to the Resolutions of the National Assembly and the Government. 

Thus, farmers can learn and work with credit institutions in the area for support in considering loan interest reduction and support policies of the Government, the State Bank of Vietnam and individual policies of each credit institution.

Moreover, in the coming time, the State Bank of Vietnam will continue to closely follow domestic and international monetary developments; forecast inflation and market interest rates to manage interest rates in line with the evolution of the macro balance, inflation and monetary policy objectives; continue to encourage credit institutions to reduce costs to reduce lending interest rates to support production and business.