Credit growth in Vietnam was at 7.26 percent as of September 16, VN Express has reported. At the same time last year, credit growth had reached 5.73 percent. In this context, alongside a target of 15 percent for the year, this does represent an improvement.
That said, it’s not clear that all of the credit entering the Vietnam economy is good. Notably, bad debts are rising among Vietnam’s banks with one analysis of 29 of Vietnam’s biggest banks earlier this year, finding that 27 had recorded an increase in bad debt by the end of June. Between them there was VND 46,719 billion or US$1.86 billion in bad debts, an increase of 20.8 percent compared to the end of 2023.