On June 28, 2021, at the headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Governor Nguyen Thi Hong had a meeting with Mrs. Victoria Kwakwa - World Bank (WB) Regional Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) within the framework of the WB Vice President's working visit to Vietnam.
SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong talks with WB Vice President Victoria Kwakwa
Welcoming the Vice President Victoria Kwakwa and her mission to visit and work at the SBV, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong thanked and expressed high appreciation for the cooperation and support of the WB in general and Vice President Victoria Kwakwa personally in particular over the years, which has contributed to the progress and achievements of the socio-economic development in Vietnam, as well as the growth of the banking and finance sector.
Speaking at the meeting, Vice President Victoria Kwakwa congratulated Governor Nguyen Thi Hong on becoming the first female Governor of the SBV, and believed that under Governor Nguyen Thi Hong's leadership, Vietnam's banking sector would continue to achieve more successes in the coming time.
WB Vice President Victoria Kwakwa speaks at the meeting
The WB Vice President also expressed her deep impression of Vietnam's successes in the fight against COVID-19, especially in the context that many countries in the region are still under severe impacts caused by the pandemic. Vice President Victoria Kwakwa emphasized the SBV’s role in operating the monetary policy proactively and flexibly, as well as in the strong implementation of the solutions and support packages to help businesses and the people overcome the COVID-related difficulties, making a significant contribution to the macro-economic stability, supporting growth while still ensuring social security.
At the meeting, SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong provided some updates on Vietnam's macroeconomic situation as well as the targets and orientations for the monetary policy management in the coming time. The SBV Governor also affirmed that the banking industry would continue to be consistent with the goal of controlling the inflation, maintaining the macro-economic stability, and focusing on implementing the solutions and measures to remove the difficulties for businesses and the people, supporting the economic growth, ensuring safe operations of the banking system; continuing to restructure the banking system in association with handling with bad debts; tirelessly innovating and thinking creatively, applying the achievements of the fourth industrial revolution in order to provide more services and utilities of digital banking, ensuring security, safety and convenience for users of financial services.
Governor Nguyen Thi Hong stressed that the Government and SBV have very high appreciation for the WB’s timely policy advice, which has helped to develop fiscal and monetary policies for Vietnam. The WB has always been a good companion to the Government of Vietnam through the impacts of the global economic crises while still maintaining high growth rates. In addition, the WB has also acted as a bridge to spread Vietnam's success lessons in economic development and poverty reduction to other partners around the world.
Particularly, the WB has recently provided valuable support to Vietnam, especially a grant of USD 6.2 million to create more resources for the fight against the pandemic and for the economic recovery, helping to enhance the capabilities of the preventive medicine and supporting the pandemic control at the central and local levels. At present, the Government of Vietnam is putting the best efforts into mobilizing vaccine resources around the world in order to conduct a mass vaccination campaign for the majority of the population. However, in order to realize this goal of herd immunity as well as to strengthen and consolidate the national capabilities in fighting future pandemics, Vietnam would need the WB’s assistance in accessing vaccine sources at reasonable prices as well as technology transfer for manufacturing the vaccines in Vietnam. Besides, the Governor also hoped that the WB would continue to provide preferential funds for Vietnam's health sector.
SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong speaks at the meeting
Talking about green growth, Governor Nguyen Thi Hong shared that the SBV always follows closely the targets set in the National Strategy and the National Action Plan on Green Growth by implementing all assigned functions and tasks. Accordingly, the SBV has continued to develop and improve the legal framework to provide guidance for the credit institutions' implementation of the green credit, with specific standards and a list of green industries/areas… for universal and consistent application, working as a basis for the credit institutions to select, appraise, evaluate and supervise when extending green credit.
Thereby, the banking industry is not only the most important finance funding channel in the economy, but it also plays the role of "greening" investment flows by directing financial resources into green areas; restricting capital flows into projects that may have footprints on the environment; promoting green production, green services and green consumption, as well as clean energy and renewable energy; actively promoting green growth and sustainable development.
Regarding financial inclusion, with the support from the WB, Vietnam had successfully implemented the Financial Inclusion Support Framework (FISF) program (from June 2016 to June 2019) with the significant results, such as: the issuance of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy until 2025, Vision to 2030 (the Strategy); the establishment of the National Steering Committee on Financial Inclusion (NSC-FI), which is chaired by the Prime Minister, and the SBV Governor acting as Vice Chair, and the leaders of 16 ministries and central government agencies as members; the implementation of the national survey on the demand for financial inclusion, and recommendations on improving the legal and regulatory frameworks related to payment and microfinance activities; the development of the Financial Competency Framework in the new general education curriculum.
The SBV Governor Nguyen Thi Hong expressed her hopes to receive further support from the WB in the coming time, especially in coordinating and mobilizing resources to implement the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, focusing on the areas of payment, anti-money laundering, financial education, consumer protection, etc..; support to the restructuring of the credit institutions in association with handling with bad debts; cooperation in sharing experience and improving the expertise and professional skills for the SBV's staff, etc.
Vice President Victoria Kwakwa affirmed that the WB would continue to close companion of the Government of Vietnam in general and the SBV in particular, and would facilitate Vietnam's participation to share its experience at the WB's fora and events organized by other international organizations, thereby consolidating and enhancing the role of the SBV as the representative of Vietnam at the WB, leveraging the SBV's role as the focal point and the bridge connecting the Government, the ministries, agencies and local authorities with the WB in order to enhance the information exchanges, the sharing of opportunities, and to promote further the cooperation.
VA