On 20 March 2012 in Hanoi, the State Bank of Vietnam joined with Citi Foundation and Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC) held a workshop titled “Financial inclusion: rural and agricultural finance”.
Attending at the seminar were Miss Dianne Gayatri Rajaratnam, President of the Better than cash alliance (BTCA); Mr. Rajeev Kumar Gupta, representative of the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF); Mr. Mad Yusof Bin Yazid, representatives Malaysia’s Agro Bank; Representative of the Office of the Government, Departments of the SBV; Vietnam Microfinance Working Group and its members, microfinance institutions / programs / projects, commercial banks and support agencies, donors. The workshop was organized to discuss about the current situation and solutions to promote finance for agriculture and rural development in Vietnam, as well as learn more about other countries’ experiences and listen to the recommendations of the International organizations on the subject.
Mr. Ha Hai An, Deputy Director of the International Cooperation Department of SBV, opened the seminar
Speaking at the opening of the event, Mr. Ha Hai An, Deputy Director General of the International Cooperation Department of the State Bank emphasized that financial inclusion is a topic receiving a lot of attention from international community and the Government of Vietnam because of its benefits for clients, especially for low-income and vulnerable people. Financial inclusion is considered as an important pillar of growth, development and poverty reduction with many practical benefits, contributing to the mobilization and efficient utilization of social resources. Financial inclusion is implemented through five main methods, including new product development; diversify the network of financial service providers; development of financial infrastructure; protect the users of financial services and disseminate financial knowledge.
Presented at the seminar were experts from the Better than cash alliance, the United Nations Development Fund and the Malaysia’s Agro Bank. The exchanges focused on the experience of financial development in the field of agriculture and rural development in the world and in the region; the benefits of electronic payments for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Topics related to financial inclusion for women in the agricultural sector; Experiences on network development for agricultural bank setting up network in Malaysia; Challenges and difficulties together with solutions on how to overcome them were actively discussed by representatives from ; VMFWG, BTCA, UNCDF, Malaysia’s Agro Bank, SBV BUSINESS DEPARTMENT.
Representations for the congress
At the meeting, Mr. Tran Van Tan, representative of the Department of Credit for Economics Industries of the State Bank of Vietnam, said that in order to encourage agricultural and rural development, the Party and the State have issued various measures, such as Resolution No. 26-NQ TW On 5th August 2008, by the Central Committee for Agriculture, Farmers and Rural Development to order the officially involvement of the whole political structure in agricultural and rural development and livelihood improvement; Decision No. 899 / QĐ-TTg on 10th June 2013 of the Prime Minister approving the project “Strengthening agriculture in value and sustainable development”; Decision No. 1600 / QD-TTg on the National Program to develop a new rural era 2016-2020 (replacing Decision No. 800 / QD-TTg dated 04/6/2010 and Decision No. 695 /QD-TTg dated 08/06/2012 by the Prime Minister) to develop rural areas in a modern direction, contributing to the quality improvement of life and wellbeing of the people.
In addition, the State Bank has submitted Decree 55/2010 / ND-CP on 9 June 2015 about rural credit development policies to the Prime Minister to replace Decree 41/2010/ND-CP dated 12/4/2010; with many important changes; It is said to be a break through development in pushing financial institutions toward investing into agriculture and rural areas. The SBV instructs credit institutions to effectively implement the program signals in some agricultural and rural areas such as credit support to coastal fishermen according to Decree 67/2014 / ND. -CP; Government credit policy for replanting rubber plantation; Government credit policy for damage control in agriculture…
The workshop took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Finance Inclusion Summit which organized by the State Bank, the Citi Foundation and the FDC from 21st to 22nd March 2017 in Hanoi with support from the VMFWG. This is an important event with priority theme of Asia-Pacific Business Forum (APEC) held in Vietnam this year.
Financial inclusion: http://www.fininclusionsummit.org/
Sources: (SBV) https://goo.gl/EwQYyu