BIDV Contributes to Promoting the Growth of Women-owned Businesses

DNHN - At the workshop, BIDV representatives, experts and speakers exchanged and provided useful information to promote the development of women-owned businesses in Vietnam.

On January 23, 2024, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) held a workshop to announce the report “Promoting Business Growth through Removing Barriers: White Paper on Women-Owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam”. At the workshop, BIDV representatives, experts and speakers exchanged and provided useful information to promote the development of women-owned businesses in Vietnam.

The White Paper, prepared by ADB in collaboration with the Department of Enterprise Development (of MPI), is a product of the “Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia and the Pacific (WAVES)” Program, funded by the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi). The publication includes key content on the operations of women-owned SMEs in Vietnam; resource and social barriers, the impact of COVID-19; assessment of policies, legal frameworks and supporting regulations; international experience and good practices; some conclusions and recommendations to promote the development of women-owned SMEs, etc.

At the workshop, a representative of the MPI assessed that women-owned businesses play an important role in Vietnam’s efforts to achieve the goal of inclusive and sustainable development. It is hoped that the findings and recommendations of the White Paper will be useful information for state management agencies and related organisations to refer to in their research to create more favourable conditions for women entrepreneurs to develop in proportion to the potential and role of this sector; thereby actively contributing to achieving the country’s goals of gender equality and sustainable development.

Ms Nguyen Thi Kim Phuong - Deputy Director of BIDV’s Corporate Customer Department, said that BIDV identifies the task of “maintaining the position of the leading bank in terms of market share in the SME customer segment” as one of the six core objectives of the Business Development Strategy to 2025, with a vision to 2030. To implement this strategy, in addition to its inherent financial capacity, tradition and experience in developing the corporate customer segment, in recent years, BIDV has been continuously developing comprehensive solutions, improving and enhancing the quality and services for SMEs, especially women-owned SMEs. BIDV not only provides credit support but also consults and accompanies customers on their development journey; simultaneously, it always strives to make a difference that brings added value to the community.

Currently, BIDV is the leading commercial joint stock bank in Vietnam in terms of total assets, reaching VND 2.26 million billion; outstanding credit balance reaching VND 1.75 million billion; the total number of corporate customers reaching about 500,000 customers; the number of SME customers is growing rapidly and continuously, ranking first in market share in Vietnam.

To support and accompany SMEs, BIDV has implemented many financial and non-financial programs to increase production and business activities, and enhance the customers' internal capacity lending program from the SMEs Development Fund, with a scale of VND 2,000 billion, preferential interest rates of 1.2%/year for short-term and 4.4%/year for long-term, for feasible projects and production and business plans in priority areas encouraged by the State; Comprehensive financial program to minimise the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on SME; Building and operating the BIDV SMEasy digital platform (https://smeasy.bidv.com.vn/) providing a comprehensive integrated solution on the digital ecosystem for SMEs; Digital transformation program with SMEs, etc.

The effectiveness of the technical assistance projects jointly implemented by ADB and BIDV is a testament to the accompaniment and support of SMEs in accessing comprehensive financial and non-financial solutions. At the same time, it demonstrates BIDV’s efforts on the journey to become the bank with the No. 1 SME customer market share in Vietnam.

Nguyen Tin