HCMC – Four more commercial banks have registered to participate in the credit package aimed at developing homes for the poor and factory workers, as well as renovating or rebuilding aging residential blocks, according to the Ministry of Construction.
Each bank has committed VND5 trillion to the program. Initially, the credit package included four state-run banks: BIDV, VietinBank, Agribank, and Vietcombank. The new participants, TPBank, VPBank, MBBank, and Techcombank, bring the total number of participating banks to eight and the total pledged funding to VND140 trillion.
The Ministry of Construction reported that 34 out of the nation’s 63 provinces have announced 78 projects eligible for preferential loans. Despite being available for over a year, the package has seen few takers, and disbursement has been slower than expected. So far, banks have disbursed VND1,344 billion, with VND1,295 billion going to investors in 12 projects and VND49 billion to homebuyers in five projects.
To expedite disbursement, the ministry has issued guidelines for identifying eligible projects and beneficiaries for the soft loans and simplified the criteria for developers, requiring only project approval and land allocation.
Under Resolution 33/NQ-CP, the Government launched the credit program to provide low-interest loans for developers and homebuyers of social housing projects. The interest rates are set 1.5-2 percentage points lower than the average medium to long-term lending rates of the state-run banks.
The State Bank of Vietnam has drafted a resolution to adjust the program, proposing a three to five percentage point reduction in interest rates for homebuyers while maintaining the current rate for developers. The Ministry of Construction agreed with these adjustments in a statement on August 2.
