In the central province of Quang Ngai, with capital from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP), many people in remote areas have been given the opportunity to escape poverty and get ahead in difficult lands.
Nearly 10 years ago, the family of Mr. Pham Van Duong, H’Re ethnic group, was one of the poorest households in Go Ret - Ma Nghit village, Ba Cung commune, Ba To district, Quang Ngai. His life and family depended on a few acres of cassava and sugarcane, so they often had to receive local subsidies. In 2015, encouraged and persuaded by officials of the Savings - Loan Group of Go Ret - Ma Nghit village, Duong boldly borrowed 50 million VND from the Poor Household Loan Program of the VBSP’s branch in Ba To district to do business.
Duong said that when he first borrowed money, the price of cassava and sugarcane in Ba To continuously dropped, while acacia trees had high prices and were easily sold, so he decided to invest all the borrowed capital in planting 2.5 hectares of acacia. During the 5-year wait for the acacia harvest, he and his wife grew more rice, vegetables and raised Ki pigs, a native pig breed, for short-term survival.
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| Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong inspected the progress of implementing National Goal programs in A Luoi district, Thua Thien Hue province. (Photo: VOV) |
He boasted that in the first acacia crop, he and his wife earned a profit of more than 100 million VND after paying off the bank debt and investing in expanding the acacia growing area to more than 4 hectares. Just like that, Duong’s family not only escaped poverty but also had food and savings. In 2021, he and his wife built a new, spacious house with full amenities to replace the house with mud walls. In addition, he also bought a truck to transport raw sap, so his life is quite prosperous with an average annual income of 150 million VND.
Pham Thi May, H’Re ethnic group in Uy Nang group, Ba To town, has also overcome poverty, becoming one of the households with a yearly income of several hundred million VND thanks to loans from the VBSP. Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, Chairwoman of the Women’s Union of Ba To town, said that through loan groups, more than 400 women members like May have received loans from the VBSP, totaling over 24 billion VND.
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| Preserving national culture. (Photo: VOV) |
From being afraid of debt, so far, many ethnic minorities in the highland district of Ba To have seen the VBSP as a companion, opening the way for them to escape poverty and become rich on their homeland.
Tran Thanh Hoang, Director of the VBSP in Ba To district said that up to now, the unit has promptly disbursed loans to over 7,700 poor, near-poor households and policy beneficiaries with about 382 billion VND. Among them, mainly ethnic minority households borrowed the capital to plant forests, develop production, and create jobs with the highest loan amount of 100 million VND.
According to Tran Thanh Hoang, through annual inspection and evaluation, most people use loans for the right purpose. In order to make it easier for people to borrow money and limit travel costs, the Bank has established 19 transaction points in all 19 communes in the area. At the same time, it built a trust network through 54 associations, unions and 190 savings and loan groups in 93 residential groups and villages throughout the district.
So far, the total budget capital of Ba To district to support loans to poor households has reached more than 9 billion VND. Along with policies and investment projects directly supporting poor households and poor communes, this mountainous district has mobilized all resources to implement poverty reduction goals according to the set plan. Thanks to that, the district’s poverty rate decreased by an average annual rate of more than 5%. In particular, through policy credit sources, ethnic minorities in the mountainous district are now increasingly proactive and flexible in innovating business methods to find a sustainable way out of poverty. In addition to traditional crops and livestock, people are gradually exploring and learning to approach new models, bringing higher economic efficiency.
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| Co Tu baby . (Photo: VOV) |
Nguyen Xuan Vinh, Chairman of the Ba To People’s Committee, said that in the near future, the district will invest in converting crops with high economic value, increasing income for mountainous people.
“The district's strength is still agriculture - forestry, focusing on growing trees with high economic value. With the introduction of the Quang Ngai Ethnic Minority Committee, the district also worked with businesses to invest in planting bamboo trees to get bamboo shoots, and later built a processing facility. The locality has coordinated with businesses to build a cooperative for growing Indian lemongrass trees combined with preliminary processing, processing and raising pigs. With the investment support of the State and policy credit capital, the district also built a production chain to create conditions for people to eradicate hunger, reduce poverty and increase socio-economic development for Ba To.”/.