The capital's credit is estimated to rise 6.6 per cent against December last year to VND1.077 trillion (US$49.86 million) in January-April, an estimated increase of 0.8 per cent compared with the previous month. — Photo laodong.com.vn

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Ha Noi-based banks have achieved half the year's credit growth target of 13-15 per cent within the first four months of 2015.

According to the Ha Noi Statistics Office, the capital's credit is estimated to rise 6.6 per cent against December last year to VND1.077 trillion (US$49.86 million) in January-April, an estimated increase of 0.8 per cent compared with the previous month.

The high credit growth proved that the economy's capacity to absorb capital had improved significantly, the office noted.

Industry insiders also said that the growth was a good signal since the country had always seen negative credit growth in the first months of previous years.

However, they called it a reasonable outcome since the entire economy had seen a significant recovery recently.

Dinh Duc Quang, deputy director of Ocean Commercial Bank, told Dau tu chung khoan (Securities Investment) magazine that the credit growth was due to real demand for capital and was therefore sustainable. He contrasted that with similar strong growth in the final part of the year, which was attributable to banks looking for a way to increase lending to achieve their targets rather than due to real demand.

Besides credit growth, the capital mobilisation of Ha Noi-based banks is also estimated to rise 5.5 per cent from December 2014 to VND1.257 trillion ($58.19 million).

Long-term capital mobilisation from 12 months onwards is estimated to account for 30.5 per cent of total mobilisation. Mobilisation in Vietnamese dong is estimated to account for 80.9 per cent of total mobilisation. — VNS