Asia Commercial Bank to charge firms 1 percent rate for loans

Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), owned partly by Standard Chartered Plc, plans to offer loans to companies in Vietnam at reduced interest rates of 1 percent to support production and export. 

The measure is part of its efforts to revive lending following the government and central bank’s stimulus packages to bolster economic growth, according to an e-mailed statement Wednesday from the lender, Vietnam’s biggest publicly traded company by market value.

The government plans to spend VND17 trillion (US$972 million) to subsidize loan interest rates by 4 percent for companies involved in exports, imports and manufacturing. The economy grew 6.2 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999, after expanding 8.5 percent in 2007.

The Ho Chi Minh City-based lender plans to lend VND35 trillion ($2 billion) at reduced rates to companies, starting February 9.

Bloomberg, thanh nien

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