HÀ NỘI — The Governor of the State Bank of Việt Nam (SBV) Nguyễn Thị Hồng has outlined goals and tasks for the banking sector over the year ahead.

Under Directive 01/CT-NHNN, issued on Wednesday, the Governor requests that the SBV’s agencies, credit institutions, foreign bank branches effectively implement solutions for managing monetary policy and banking activities in 2025. They need to contribute to prioritising strong economic growth associated with maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, and ensuring major balances of the economy.

They must focus on reviewing, developing and implementing plans to arrange and restructure the organisational apparatus to ensure the efficiency in accordance with the direction of the Politburo, the Government and the Prime Minister.

The SBV’s agencies are required to manage monetary policy proactively, flexibly, promptly and effectively. The monetary policy must be closely coordinated with fiscal policy and other policies to contribute to prioritising a strong economic growth associated with macroeconomic stability and controlled inflation.

The credit growth management policy also needs to be innovated and managed in line with macroeconomic developments and ensure the safety of credit institutions. The credit growth of the banking system is expected to be about 16 per cent in 2025, with appropriate adjustments based on developments and actual situations.

Responding to the SBV's monetary policy management solutions to contribute to meeting the Government’s GDP growth target of more than 8 per cent in 2025, SBV Deputy Governor Đào Minh Tú said that the important issue for the banking industry this year is how to have enough capital for investment needs of the economy.

Tú explained that credit growth of more than 2 per cent will help GDP increase by only one per cent. With this year's Government GDP growth target of 8 per cent, the SBV sets a corresponding credit growth target of 16 per cent. If the GDP growth target is 10 per cent, corresponding credit growth will be 18-20 per cent.

Under the directive, the Governor also requires SBV’s relevant agencies to synchronously deploy foreign exchange management solutions in 2025 to contribute to stabilising the country’s foreign exchange market and supporting monetary policy management.

SBV’s relevant authorities must also propose appropriate solutions to manage gold trading activities in the new context, the directive states.

In 2025, the banking industry needs to resolutely implement the tasks and solutions in a project on restructuring the system of credit institutions in conjunction with bad debt handling and a project on developing non-cash payments for the 2021-2025 period to meet the projects’ goals.

The industry must continue to vigorously implement administrative reforms. To minimise administrative procedures and input costs and create the greatest convenience for people and businesses, which will contribute to improving the business environment and enhancing people's credit rating and trust. — VNS