On April 11th, 2018, at the headquarters of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong had a meeting with Ms. Nena Stoiljkovic - Vice President of International Finance Corporation (IFC) – World Bank Group for the Asia - Pacific region.
Also attending the meeting were representatives of the SBV’s International Cooperation Department, the Monetary Policy Department, the Foreign Exchange Management Department, the Department of Legal Affairs and the SBV Office. On the IFC side, there were Mr. Kyle F. Kelhofer, IFC Senior Country Manager for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and other officers of the IFC Office in Hanoi.
On behalf of the SBV Board of Management, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong welcomed Ms. Nena Stoiljkovic to Vietnam on her first working visit as Vice President of the IFC for the Asia-Pacific region. The Deputy Governor wished Ms. Nena Stoiljkovic’s trip a great success and would help to deepen the long-term cooperation between the IFC and the Government of Vietnam.
“Vietnam has always considered the private sector to be particularly important as it has the potential to develop its strengths and resources to effectively support the State sector as well as the overall development of the economy. This has been reflected in many Directives, guiding documents of the Party and the State; especially Resolution No.10-NQ/TW of the recent 5th Plenum of the Party Central Committee has emphasized that the objective of developing the private economy to become an important driving force of the socialist-oriented market economy,” said the SBV Deputy Governor.
Overview of the meeting
The Government highly appreciated the IFC's support to Vietnam in recent years. The IFC's activities and orientations are fully in line with the development policy of Vietnam. For the banking sector, the IFC has been a big investor, a companion, and has contributed significantly to the development of the whole system. Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong appreciated the technical support that the IFC has extended to the SBV during the past time and said that the demand for technical support from the SBV subsidiary units is still very high. In the coming time, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong hoped the IFC would continue to provide further support as well as call for funding from other international organizations to contribute to the consolidation and enhancement of the operational efficiency of the SBV units.
Speaking at the meeting, the IFC Vice President for the Asia-Pacific region expressed her impressions with the successes and encouraging results that Vietnam has made in implementing the measures to stabilize the macro-economy, control inflation, and ensure social security. The total IFC investment for Vietnam has increased steadily over the years. Especially, the year 2017 was a record year of the IFC in mobilizing capital for Vietnam, making Vietnam become second after China in terms of total investment of the IFC in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the plan, the IFC expects to raise 1 billion USD in long-term investment capital for Vietnam in FY2018, with a focus on the banking sector. The IFC's cooperation with the SBV has been implemented in many areas such as payment, green credit, bad debt management, administration…
Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong and the IFC Vice Chairman also discussed some content related to the fields that the IFC has invested in recent years such as banking and finance sector, enterprise equitization, capital market development, state-owned enterprise reforms,... Ms. Nena Stoiljkovic also proposed that the SBV consider to allow the IFC to launch a program of issuing international bonds in association with the Vietnamese dong in order to mobilize more capital to support the IFC's investment activities in Vietnam’s market. Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said that these fields are necessary and appropriate to the orientation of the Government, contributing to employment generation and promoting growth for Vietnam. The Government and the SBV always welcome and will facilitate the IFC's operations in Vietnam.
Ms. Nena Stoiljkovic emphasized that the IFC always considers Vietnam as an important partner and a potential market, and looked forward to long-term cooperation and investment in priority areas in Vietnam. In the coming time, the IFC will continue to promote investment and cooperation relations with Vietnam in various areas such as: Participating in the process of enterprise restructuring; Participating in developing the capital market, especially the bond market, helping to solve the problem of bad debts, contributing to speed up the process of restructuring the banking system in Vietnam.
Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong take a photo with the IFC Vice President for the Asia-Pacific region
VA