On October 9, 2024, in Hanoi, under the instructions of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the Banking Review, in collaboration with the Department of Credit for Economic Sectors, organized a Workshop on "Financial and credit solutions to promote "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" to develop rapidly and sustainably".
Speaking at the Workshop, Ms. Ha Thu Giang, Director General of the Department of Credit for Economic Sectors, said that promoting credit for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers” is a key objective in the SBV's action program. The banking sector always identifies agriculture and rural development as one of the priority areas that need to focus credit resources on. Accordingly, the banking sector has regularly reviewed and improved the legal frameworks on the banking operations, especially the regulations on the provision of credit; promptly issued instructions and directed the implementation of the credit programs and policies for the agriculture sector; directed the implementation of the solutions to unblock and direct the credit flows into agriculture and rural areas; reviewed and simplified the processes and procedures, creating favorable conditions for customers to access bank loans; strengthened the coordination with the Ministries, agencies, local authorities, and socio-political organizations to disseminate information on the credit policies and guidelines for agriculture and rural development...
Ms. Ha Thu Giang, Director General of the Department of Credit for Economic Sectors, speaks at the Workshop
Over the past time, the economy in rural areas has experienced positive changes, with a shift in the main career from agriculture to non-agriculture (industry, services). In 2020, there were 8.58 million of non-agricultural households, accounting for 50.9% of the total number of households in the rural areas, and their income has been increasing and becoming more diversified. In the period of 2008-2020, the income of the people in the rural areas increased 5.5 times, faster than the growth rate of those in the urban areas; 62.5% of households in the rural areas have two or more sources of income. In addition, the infrastructure in the rural areas has been constantly improved. The national target program on new rural development has achieved beyond the set targets, both in the percentage of qualifying communes, and the average number of criteria per commune... However, due to both objective and subjective reasons, banks’ credit for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" is still facing many difficulties. Climate change is becoming increasingly complicated, causing a lot of damage to the agricultural production. The infrastructure for agriculture and rural areas is still in poor conditions, continuing to be a big challenge to the industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas. Besides, most farmers are stilling producing on a small scale, fragmented manner, without linkages between the production stages...
Regarding the credit resources, a representative of the Vietnam Farmers' Union shared that the number of staff and employees of the Farmers' Support Fund within their system did not meet the management requirements, while the scale of the Fund's capital is increasing. In addition, the digital transformation is still at its early stages, the application of the information technology to the management and operations of the Fund is still limited, and the promotion of the application of science and technology in agriculture has not been implemented in a comprehensive way. In addition, there is still a big gap among the income groups and the regions, and workers in rural areas often have very low income; the support policies for the rural areas are not attractive enough for investors...
At the panel discussion session of the Workshop, the invited panelists shared their perspectives on how to promote the credit resources for the development of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers"; assessed the opportunities and difficulties, thereby recommending a number of issues that need further attention and research, such as the improvement of the mechanisms and policies to resolve the current limitations of credit for agriculture and rural areas; the policies on encouraging the development of organic agriculture, circular agriculture, smart agriculture, ecological agriculture; the agricultural production along the value chain linkages.... Based on the outcomes of the discussions, the participants came up with some financial and credit solutions to promote the rapid and sustainable development of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" in the coming time.
Le Hang