Nepal learns about social policy credit activities in Vietnam

General Director of VBSP Duong Quyet Thang received the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development of Nepal

At the meeting, General Director Duong Quyet Thang sent greetings and best wishes to the delegation during its working visit to Vietnam, including the working session with VBSP.

As a credit institution of the Government, operating not for profit, VBSP is the largest unit providing comprehensive finance for poor households and policy beneficiaries in Vietnam. So far, the bank has established the management model and credit methods suitable to specific political institutions in Vietnam, with more than 20 programs, focusing on lending to poor households, near-poor households, households newly escaped from poverty, and other policy beneficiaries.

In 21 years of operation, VBSP has provided loan support to help nearly 6.3 million households overcome the poverty threshold; created jobs for more than 5.9 million workers, supported loans for more than 3.8 million students; built more than 16.8 million rural clean water and environmental sanitation projects; built nearly 729,000 houses for the poor and other policy beneficiaries; supported nearly 2,000 businesses and employers affected by the COVID-19 epidemic to borrow capital to pay wages for work stoppages; and contributing to reducing the poverty rate across the country through each period, from 9.88% to 2.23% in the period 2016 - 2021.

The World Bank (WB) recognized VBSP as the largest microfinance provider in Vietnam and one of the largest microfinance organizations in Asia, with the success of Vietnam’s social policy credit deployment contributing to helping Vietnam achieve the millennium goals ahead of schedule.

Overview of the working session

Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Development of Nepal Bedu Ram Bhusal thanked VBSP for the enthusiastic reception and congratulated the bank for its achievements in recent times. The visit and work at VBSP is an opportunity for the delegation of Nepal to learn and exchange experiences, which is a useful basis to help officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development perform their job better when they return home.

Within the framework of the experiential learning program, the delegation went on a field trip to learn about social policy credit activities, microcredit and agricultural value chains in some localities./.