At the conference on monetary policies, removing difficulties for production, business promotion of growth, leaders of many large enterprises shared their insights on accessing credit capital.
Chairman of Vietnam Textile Group: Without support from banks, the fiber industry may suffer
Mr. Le Tien Truong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vietnam Textile Group, said that currently interest rates in countries are at around 3.5%. In Vietnam, for Vietnam Textile Group, the average loan interest rate is about 7% for good businesses and about 9% for bad businesses.
In Bangladesh, the current interest rate is about 8%, but they have a inflation rate of over 10%, so in terms of real positive interest rates, Vietnam has the highest real positive interest rate among textile-exporting countries.
In Vietnam, the interest rate to be paid to banks in 2023 by Vinatex in the consolidated financial statement increased by 10% compared to 2022, while total debt decreased by 11%. Debt decreased by 11% but interest to be paid increased by 10%, which means that compared to 2022, the cost of goods sold is higher, and compared to 2021 with support, interest to be paid increased by 30%.
Also according to Mr. Truong, in 2022 it is easy to access capital, in 2023 it is more difficult and especially, recently, late 2023, early 2024, when considering the credit limit for 2024 for fiber industry businesses, it is very difficult.
Nowadays, all banks have cut credit limits for fiber companies, or require 100% collateral for short-term loans in 2024. In 2023, the value of this collateral accounted for only about 20%, but now it is required to be 100% or apply the policy of being able to pay back 10 which is only allowed to borrow again 8 or 9.
For the fiber group at present, many units have a borrowing rate of about 7% for joint stock commercial banks, and about 9% for joint stock commercial banks outside the state.
Leaders of the fiber industry emphasized that without the support of banks, the guidance of the government and ministries, we may lose the fiber industry. The current fiber industry has 10 million spindles. The asset value as new investment is about 6 billion USD, the remaining value is about 3 billion USD, and currently each year is paying the bank about 300 million USD.
Real estate businesses wish to access low-cost credit capital
For real estate businesses, Mr. Dang Minh Truong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sun Group expressed the desire for real estate businesses to have access to credit capital sources with lower costs.
According to Mr. Truong, currently the difference between loans from joint stock commercial banks and state-owned commercial banks is quite large (about 4-5%). Businesses want to narrow this gap and if possible, reduce borrowing costs even more to create favorable conditions for business recovery.
Meanwhile, Mr. Quang Van Viet Cuong, Deputy Director General of Binh Duong Investment and Development Corporation (Becamex) shared that accessing credit at Becamex is not difficult. However, Becamex is facing difficulties in mobilizing capital from bonds. Those difficulties affect debt repayment plans and credit borrowing.
Becamex also believes that when businesses access banks, the legal framework is not sufficient. Becamex hopes that banks will have new policies, new credit packages to implement so that businesses can grasp and have a basis to build and create optimal conditions for connecting credit sources, ensuring the development of this new field because at present the development of renewable energy is not given special incentives, different from current regulations.
