The State Bank of Vietnam published a New Year briefing summarising Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s instructions to the banking sector and setting out the central bank’s operating priorities for 2025. The agenda focuses on maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation and keeping the monetary market stable, while using monetary and credit policy to support growth and reduce borrowing costs. Key tasks include reducing costs to create room for lower lending rates and directing credit to priority programmes and sectors, including social housing development, the programme to eliminate temporary and dilapidated housing, and strategic transport infrastructure. The plan also emphasises continued handling of weak banks, effective control and resolution of non-performing loans, and decisive implementation of the restructuring scheme for credit institutions, alongside accelerated digital transformation linked to Project 06, development of a banking-sector database and stronger security for payment and banking operations. As context, the briefing reported that credit to the economy increased by about 15.08% in 2024 and highlighted initiatives including the VND 145 trillion lending programme for social housing and worker housing, as well as measures to manage the SJC gold-bar price premium against global prices.