Pledging to continue measures to keep credit growth suitable to the country's economic development, Hong said the measures are aimed to ensure the safety and efficiency of the banking sector and the economy.
Nguyen Duc Long, deputy director of the SBV's monetary policy department, said credit of the whole 2016 grew by 18.71 percent compared to the end of 2015, falling within the range of credit growth rate of 18-20 percent targeted for 2016. Credit management has succeeded in curbing the rise of lending to the real estate sector and shifting the capital flow to production industries, Long said.
However, Vietnamese credit institutions expect credit growth to reach 19.12 percent in 2017, according to an SBV's survey on business performance prospects of credit institutions for 2017.
The survey was conducted in the last two months of 2016 by SBV's Statistics and Forecasting Department, questioning all credit institutions and SBV branches nationwide.
The forecast is based on credit institutions' optimistic attitude toward stable macro-economic environment, higher economic growth and inflation being kept at safe level which will facilitate the liquidity of the banking system.
Thanks to an improved business climate, 63 to 85 percent of the surveyed institutions expect their business performance in the first quarter of this year and in the whole year to be better than last year.