The Government will keep close control on public debt and strive tobring bad debt ratio to around three percent, according to a resolutionadopted following the Cabinet regular meeting in October.

Accordingly, the State Bank is required to improve businesses’ accessto credit, stimulate credit growth and ensure credit quality whiletightening control of the banking system and firmly restructuring weakcredit organisations.

Regarding bad debt, thegovernment said 54.3 percent of total bad debts have been resolved byOctober, while the bad debt ratio as reported by credit organisations isaround 3.8 percent and shows sign of declining.

The Government will continue to push the settlement of bad debt inparallel with restructuring credit organisations through completing thelegal framework and enhancing the capacity of the Vietnam AssetManagement Company (VAMC). At the same time, efforts will be exertedto maintain macroeconomic stability, the healthy development of thestock and property markets and economic growth to facilitate thesettlement of bad debt with the goal of reducing the bad debt ratio toaround 3 percent by the end of 2015.

Regardingpublic debt, the Government noted that public debt has increasedrapidly, from 51.7 percent of the GDP in 2010 to 60.3 percent at the endof this year, explaining that the borrowings are to pay for measures tostimulate economic growth and ensure social welfare in the context ofdiminishing budget revenues as the country’s economic growth slowed downdue to impacts of the global financial crisis and economic slump.

However, the rate is still within the acceptable level in line withthe National Assembly’s resolution, the Government affirmed, noting thatmore than 98 percent of public borrowings were spent on infrastructure,1.5 percent were pumped into the State budget for investment spendingand only 0.4 percent were used for administrative purposes in ODAprojects.

The Government is resolved to keepstrict control of public debt, particularly new loans, to ensure thedebt ratio is within the permitted level while tightening the monitoringand inspection of the use of capital from this source.

At the same time, the Government will take urgent measures torestructure public debt in the direction of raising the ratio oflong-term, low-interest borrowing.

TheGovernment’s resolution also instructed the Government Inspectorate tocoordinate with other ministries, agencies and local governments totimely deal with complaints and petitions, particularly those involving alarge number of people and having been delayed for a long time.-VNA