5 'topics' assigned by the Prime Minister to the new Governor

On the afternoon of November 16, the Prime Minister handed over the appointment decision.Governor of the State Bankfor Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong, and at the same time assigned her and the Banking sector 5 important tasks.

According to the Prime Minister, the banking industry needs consistent goals.inflation control, stabilizing the macro economy, stabilizing the value of the dong. This is the top priority task of the State Bank and also an important achievement over the past years, when inflation has decreased from over 18% in 2011 to below 4%.

In the coming time, the Prime Minister requested a consistent low inflation target and a stable macro-economic foundation for rapid and sustainable economic development, but noted the need to stabilize the monetary, credit, and foreign exchange markets and increase the foreign exchange reserve ratio.

The second important task according to the Prime Minister is to operate flexible monetary and credit policies to facilitate businesses.access to creditlow cost, simple procedure, convenient

Accordingly, the State Bank needs to study measures to reduce interest costs, because many banks are still making large profits while the economy is still facing difficulties, many businesses are losing money, even going bankrupt. This year, banks should not set high profit targets to share the difficulties of businesses and people, according to the Prime Minister.

Although credit growth is low due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister said that many areas have good lending and development potential such as agriculture, especially high-tech agriculture, export agriculture, e-commerce, processing industry, information technology application, telecommunications, healthcare, education, etc.

In addition, banks also need to continue to erase, reduce, extend, postpone, and restructure debts for the Central provinces that have recently suffered from natural disasters and floods. The four state-owned commercial banks need to play an important role in contributing to macroeconomic stability.

Third, the banking sector needs to continue to strengthen the capacity of the banking inspection and supervision system to ensure system safety. The banking inspection and supervision agency must be effective, strong, professional, modern, and not "wait until the horse is gone before building the barn". If violations occur in the banking credit sector, it means that the banking supervision agency has not fulfilled its duties.

The fourth problem that the Prime Minister assigned to the banking sector is to promote the restructuring of credit institutions associated withbad debt handling, especially for weak banks. The Prime Minister said that this is an important task that the Government and the State Bank have urged and directed to implement in the past, but the results have not been as expected.

Therefore, the State Bank needs to have specific directions for each bank, first of all for the period 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030. A particularly important requirement in this task for the State Bank is to both limit the increase in bad debt, reduce existing bad debt, and have a mechanism for credit institutions to develop healthily and sustainably, with the goal of Vietnam having a bank in the top of the best banks in the region.

Finally, the Prime Minister requested the banking industry to continuously modernize the banking sector, pioneer in applying information technology and digitalization, contributing to reducing costs and approaching international standards.

Speaking at the decision-receiving ceremony, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said she realized the great responsibility of being the head of the banking system, especially in the current context. She acknowledged that banking management requires appropriate steps in the context of the unpredictable fluctuations of the world economy, the complicated Covid-19 pandemic, and the explosion of the 4.0 industrial revolution.

She affirmed that she will direct the banking system to control inflation, stabilize the macro economy, ensure system safety... to help banks fulfill their role as an effective capital channel for the economy.