Exchange rate cools down in some banks

The US$/VND exchange rate yesterday cooled down in some large commercial banks.-Photo VNA

SBV yesterday kept its daily reference exchange rate unchanged from the previous day at VND22,635 per US dollar. With the current trading band of +/- 3 per cent, the ceiling rate applied to commercial banks during the day was VND23,314 and the floor rate VND21,956 per dollar.

Vietcombank yesterday listed the dollar at VND23,000 for buying and VND23,070 for selling, both down VND5 against the previous day.

The buying and selling rates at BIDV were also adjusted down by VND10 to VND23,010 and VND23,080, respectively.

The US dollar has appreciated significantly against the Vietnamese dong recently.

According to Pham Thanh Ha, head of the SBV’s Monetary Policy Department, the recent appreciation of the dollar against the dong was due to inside and outside impacts such as poor sessions on the domestic stock market and the dollar rising globally.

Commenting on the exchange rate and foreign currency market so far this year, Ha said both were stable in the first five months thanks to a trade surplus, high disbursement of foreign direct investment, big deals with high foreign indirect investment and the stable USD Index.

Ha said the SBV would continue to monitor domestic and world markets with an eye on the impacts of rising US exchange rates, US-China relations, the European Central Bank and Japan’s central bank, as well as domestic foreign currency supply.

“If necessary, the SBV will sell foreign currency at a lower price to stabilise the market, contributing to keeping the macro-economy steady,” stated Ha.

Earlier, SBV Governor Le Minh Hung said at an online conference between the Government and localities held in Ha Noi on Monday that SBV’s net purchase of foreign currencies exceeded US$11 billion in the first half of 2018, increasing the nation’s foreign exchange reserves to approximately $63.5 billion.

Hung said the SBV had carried out a flexible currency policy to stabilise the average interest rate. The average lending interest rate was reduced by 0.5 percentage points over the January-June period.

Meanwhile, credit grew approximately 6.9 per cent from 2017, with its structure occupied mainly by those lent to the processing-manufacturing sector (16.3 per cent) and rural agriculture (21 per cent), as well as small-and medium-sized businesses (nearly 7.1 per cent).

Hung stressed that the credit structure had been shifting towards supporting the development of special production areas like exports, rural farming and the processing-manufacturing industry.

He added that over the past six months, the SBV had also sped up the handling of bad debt.

He said a recent increase in the foreign exchange rate was predictable as the US Federal Reserve had raised the interest rates and the dollar had appreciated on the international market.

Hung stated that the SBV was willing to intervene in the local foreign exchange market if supply or demand problems arose.