Green credit is making progress but not yet over the challenges
Green growth and sustainable development continue to be the main development trend in the world against increasingly serious issues of environmental pollution and climate change. Being aware of the challenges and requirements for socio -economic development in the new context, the Party and the State have proposed views, orientations and goals on environmental protection and sustainable development of the country. At the same time, building and implementing overall solutions to effectively mobilize capital from all areas for green economic transformation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at the Workshop "Unblocking green credit flows" organized by the State Bank in coordination with Lao Dong Newspaper on April 25, 2025, Ms. Ha Thu Giang - Director of the Department of Economic Sectors Credit (Vietnam State Bank) - said: "In the past time, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has promptly implemented, creating conditions for green credit activities to promote green growth and sustainable development".
Ms. Giang shared that the SBV has operated a reasonable credit policy, meeting the credit capital needs of the economy to support economic growth, directing credit to priority areas and economic growth drivers according to the Government's policy, including supporting the economy to switch to a green growth model.
In addition, targeting and developing solutions to promote and develop green credit and green banking to contribute to the transformation of the economy to green, low carbon emissions; increasing the proportion of bank credit capital invested in renewable energy, clean energy, low-carbon manufacturing and consumption industries in the Banking Industry Development Strategy to 2025, Green Bank Development Project in Vietnam, Project to restructure the system of credit institutions associated with bad debt handling in the period of 2021 - 2025...
The SBV also reviewed, amended and perfected legal regulations on credit granting activities of credit institutions (CIs) to customers to create unity, synchronization and compliance with the trend of green growth and sustainable development.
In addition, actively implement credit policies to focus capital on green industries/sectors, agricultural production according to the linkage model, applying high technology, policy credit programs to support the poor in housing to prevent climate change, etc.
"The State Bank of Vietnam also actively participates as a member of many international financial forums to learn from experience, mobilize resources, improve capacity... in promoting green credit and green banking activities for green and sustainable growth goals; at the same time, based on the actual implementation of Vietnam, it also contributes many initiatives on green banking, gradually enhancing Vietnam's position at international forums and organizations on banking currency, serving the development of the banking industry, in line with the requirements of international integration" - Ms. Giang said.
On the side of credit institutions, according to Director Ha Thu Giang, credit institutions have actively implemented tasks and solutions to achieve the goal of green credit, the green bank is quite comprehensive, meeting the regulations of the State Bank, the regulations of the environmental law. The credit institutions actively promulgate and integrate the contents of green growth in business development strategies and plans; diversify resources ...
In addition to the positive results achieved, according to Ms. Giang, green credit activities still face some difficulties:
The National Green Classification List, the Green Economic Sub-System with determinative and qualitative environmental criteria have not been issued, serving as a basis for determining and classifying economic activities, causing difficulties for the banking system in implementing and fully compiling credit resources for green growth and environmental protection goals.
Institutions, investment policies for green growth, and support mechanisms for green transformation are in the process of being built and completed.
Mobilizing investment capital for projects, green domestic sectors and international markets is still facing difficulties due to the impact of political economic instability, interest rate-related issues, exchange rate risks, etc.
Investing in green projects requires large capital sources and the ability to assess specialized environmental technical factors, so credit institutions will incur additional investment costs to build a governance system in line with the goals of green growth, green transformation of the economy, and improve the capacity of banking staff in green banking and sustainable finance.
The awareness of businesses and investors about the benefits and importance of the green financial market is not uniform, leading to the level of interest of customers in mobilization products and green financial credit products not being high, and the fear of using new banking products/service.
The information system on customers' compliance with environmental protection is still limited and difficult to access with credit institutions, leading to difficulties in the process of exploiting, collecting and processing information for environmental risk assessment, as well as in the process of auditing and monitoring.
Opening the way for green credit to break out
According to Director of the Economic Sector Credit Department (ESA) Ha Thu Giang, unblocking and effectively using green credit capital of the banking system requires coordination from ministries, branches, and competent authorities in perfecting the legal corridor and support mechanisms, creating motivation to mobilize all resources from economic regions.
"The ministries and branches need to continue to pay investment in order to create favorable investment environments; develop a roadmap to implement policies and policies to support green industries (taxes, fees, capital, techniques, markets, planning, development strategies ...) of each sector/field in a synchronous manner to attract and promote the effectiveness of green credit capital.
The National Green Classification List will be issued soon; complete the legal framework for green financial instruments such as green bonds, develop markets for exchanging emission rights; complete tax tools for activities with carbon emissions" - Ms. Giang emphasized.
Ms. Giang added that it is necessary to develop and implement solutions to support credit institutions in accessing and mobilizing financial resources from institutions, finance, funds and international private investors, financial funds to facilitate the provision of long-term credit and more suitable preferential interest rates for green sectors/sectors.
