On July 8, the State Bank held a regular press conference for the second quarter of 2025.
Regarding credit management, Director of the monetary policy department (state Bank), Mr. Pham Chi Quang, said that there are many reasons why VND is still depreciated by 2.7-2.8% while since the beginning of 2024, DXY has decreased by 10%.
According to Mr. Quang, one of the prominent reasons is to maintain the VND interest rate at a low level.
Mr. Quang said that interest rates are an important factor in maintaining the strength of a currency. In the past, implementing the Government's direction on reducing lending interest rates to ensure economic growth, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has directed credit institutions to reduce costs and reduce lending interest rates. Accordingly, lending interest rates decreased by 0.6% compared to the end of 2024.
The Director of the monetary policy department explained that when the VND is no longer attractive and the USD is more attractive, organizations will switch to holding USD. It is worth mentioning that although we still have a good balance of payments, we still have a good surplus, but the cash flow is changing very quickly related to foreign capital flows on the stock market that have been continuously withdrawn from 2024 to present.
According to statistics from Lao Dong, in the first 6 months of 2025, foreign investors disbursed more than VND 267,600 billion to the Vietnamese stock market and sold about VND 308,300 billion. The net withdrawal value reached VND 40,700 billion, equivalent to USD 1.5 billion.
Forecasting exchange rates and interest rates for the last 6 months of the year, Mr. Quang reviewed the information early in the morning of the same day, the US presidential administration Donald Trump announced the counterpart tax rate for 14 countries. He said that with this tax rate table, FDI capital flows will be greatly affected.
Mr. Quang said: Our country has a large opening, a very large export market, especially for exports to the US, so tax policies will greatly affect exchange rates and interest rates in the coming time when capital flows move between countries.
Next, Mr. Quang said that the FED's policy is also a matter of concern. Accordingly, the FED has delayed interest rate cuts twice, due to the Trump administration's tax policy. Although inflation in European countries and Japan tends to decrease, US inflation is very unstable. Meanwhile, the US Central Bank's interest rate management policy is based on data, especially employment data. While this data has many unknowns.
Director Quang said that with the unpredictable fluctuations in the FED's interest rate reduction policy, this will be a factor that greatly affects Vietnam's interest rate and exchange rate movements.
Mr. Quang said that although our country's economy has recovered somewhat, data released by the Ministry of Finance shows that the number of enterprises withdrawing from the market is very large, so the sustainable development of GDP also needs to be taken seriously because it will affect the monetary policy of the SBV.
Implementing the Government's direction on economic growth and to maintain a growth rate of 16% in 2025, up to now, according to Mr. Quang, inflation is likely to be controlled at the level set by the parliament of below 4.5%.
In the context of the current very warm credit growth, with an increase of 9.9% compared to the end of 2024 (as of the end of June 2025), Mr. Quang said that the SBV will not be subjective with credit growth.
Accordingly, in the last 6 months of the year, if inflation is controlled, commercial banks keep good liquidity and bad debt levels under control, the SBV will consider extending zoom for banks with room.
