The bad debt ratio of the banking system has decreased to 6%.

According to the latest report of the Governor of the State Bank at the regular government meeting in February today (February 28), the bad debt ratio of the entire banking industry has now decreased from more than 8% to 6%.

(Illustration: Internet)

This information was just confirmed by Minister - Head of the Government Office Vu Duc Dam at a press conference held late afternoon of the same day.

According to Minister Vu Duc Dam, this is good news because although the bad debt handling company has not been established, up to now the bad debt handling rate has decreased to 6%.

Regarding the negative credit balance in the past two months, the government spokesperson expressed concern. According to Minister Dam, the credit growth plan this year is about 12%. In addition, Vietnam also set a dual target this year of both growth and inflation control.

Therefore, the government requires other authorities to closely follow these targets to coordinate operations. In particular, the regulatory agencies must also consider “spreading out” credit in the remaining 10 months, avoiding concentrating it at one time, causing pressure on inflation.

Along with this issue, Minister Vu Duc Dam also said that the Government will have a roadmap to continue adjusting interest rates.

Providing more information about the domestic economic situation, Minister Vu Duc Dam said that the consumer price index (CPI) in the first two months of the year was 2.59%. Compared to many years, this is a quite positive number.

However, the Minister affirmed that this is absolutely not something that can be taken lightly in the context of production and business conditions that still face many difficulties.

As evidence, the Minister said that the number of businesses that stopped operating in the past two months was more than 8,600 while the number of newly established businesses was only 8,000.

"Therefore, measures to overcome difficulties need to be more drastic and specific. There must be no long gap between policy and practice," Minister Vu Duc Dam emphasized.

Also regarding the policy of removing difficulties and supporting the market, another issue that many people are interested in was also mentioned by a representative of the Ministry of Finance at a press conference this afternoon: the progress of developing a decree guiding the registration fee for cars. According to Ms. Vu Thi Mai, Deputy Minister of Finance, this agency just submitted the above draft to the Government on February 26.

Ms. Mai said that according to the draft submitted to the government, the Ministry of Finance plans to set the registration fee for first-time cars at 10%. On that basis, the People's Councils of provinces and cities will base on specific conditions to decide on the applicable rate for their localities, but not exceeding 50% of the prescribed rate. Accordingly, the maximum fee will be 15%. For the registration fee applied to cars registered for the second time (old cars), the prescribed fee is expected to be 2%.

The Deputy Minister of Finance also added that the time to apply this new fee according to the draft is from March 15.

According to the report at the government meeting, as of February 21, total means of payment (M2) is estimated to have increased by 3.31% compared to December 2012. Total customer deposits at credit institutions are estimated to have increased by 1.84%.

Regarding industry, the industrial production index in the first two months of the year increased by 6.8% over the same period in 2012.

Total export turnover in the past two months is estimated at over 18.97 billion USD, up nearly 24% over the same period last year. Notably, domestic exports have improved with a growth rate of 4%.

According to (Vietnam+) - LT