Within the framework of technical assistance project of “Promoting Transformative Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific”, on June 6, 2023, in Hanoi, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), organized a workshop on “Lending to Women-led SMEs: Best Practices and Policy Framework”.
The Workshop aimed to support the SBV and the commercial banks in identifying the challenges and difficulties in accessing credit faced by women-led enterprises; assess the gap in providing credit and financial services to women-led SMEs; propose changes to enhance and expand credit; improve awareness of the credit policies and programs; and share about the good practices from other countries, thereby enhancing credit to women-led SMEs in Vietnam.
Ms. Vu Minh Chau, Deputy Director General of the SBV International Cooperation Department, speaks at the Workshop
Speaking at the Workshop, Ms. Vu Minh Chau, Deputy Director General of the SBV International Cooperation Department, affirmed that, implementing the Government’s directions, the banking sector has always considered SMEs to be one of five priority sectors for credit promotion. As a companion to SMEs, including women-led SMEs, especially in the context of negative impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SBV has directed the commercial banks to implement various measures and support policies to resolve the difficulties for SMEs, focusing on improving the capital accessibility, such as the policies on preferential lending interest rates, the implementation of multiple programs and products in support of SMEs, as well as various measures aimed at removing the difficulties faced by COVID-19 affected enterprises; the 2% interest rate support program; the Bank-Enterprise Connection Conferences, etc. Therefore, credit to SME sector, including women-led SMEs, has increased on an annual basis.
In order to promptly support women-led SMEs in need of finance in time of the COVID-19, the ADB had supported a Program worth USD 5 million to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs, with the participation of the SBV being the management agency, and five commercial banks as implementers, namely BIDV, ACB, SHB, TPBank and VPBank. In further supporting SMEs and the banks, the SBV had partnered with the ADB to conduct researches and assessments of the difficulties and obstacles faced by women-led SMEs.
Ms. Chu Hong Minh from the ADB speaks at the Workshop
Sharing at the Workshop, Ms. Chu Hong Minh, ADB Senior Financial Specialist, assessed that Vietnam has conducted several policies and measures to support women entrepreneurs, women-led startups, businesses employing large numbers of women, especially women-led SMEs. Over the past years, the banking sector has considered these groups to be one of the priority targets for support and credit granting, especially in light of the complicated situations in the COVID-19 period.
Mr. Reuben Jessop, International Financial Consultant from Palladium International, speaks at the Workshop
Sharing about good practices and experience in promoting lending to women-led SMEs in the first session at the Workshop, Mr. Reuben Jessop, International Financial Consultant at Palladium International, gave a presentation on the policy implementation and lending to women-led SMEs. He also made some recommendations to the SBV and Vietnamese policy makers on how to promote lending to women-led SMEs.
The experts in the panel discussion
At the Workshop, there was also a panel discussion session with the experts sharing on the limitations and possible solutions to the application and the collection of gender-disaggregated credit data in Vietnam to promote lending to women-led SMEs.
Le Hang