Vietnam Women's Union

5 years Review conference on performance of Social Policy Bank’s trust fund

25/08/2008

In the morning July 25th, 2008, the Central Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU) held a five year - review conference on trust fund performance in service of the poor households and other beneficiaries of social policy in Ho Chi Minh City. Attending the conference, were VWU’s leaders, members of the VWU’s Executive Committee, some Presidents of WU at commune level, leaders and staffs from the State Bank, the Social Policy Bank(SPB)…

Mrs. Nguyen Thi Kim Thuy, Vice President ofVWU presented a review report on the five years disbursing trust loans the poor households and other beneficiaries (2003-2008). In the 9 stages of the lending process,VWU takes a contract of 6-stages. For the last 5 years, VWU has implemented well the trust contract with SPB: providing training on effective usage and management of fund, for the borrowers taking trust funds from the SPB of over 16 thousand billion VND for 2.4 million household members of whom only 0.86% have overdue loans. This is a successful cooperation between VWU and SPB for poverty alleviation.

The speeches and comments made by representatives from some local Women’s Union and the SPB branches have vividly illustrated the achievements of VWU at all level on the trust contract. Moreover, some recommendations actions were addressed to the government such as: issuing the new criteria to identify the poor households, increasing the total loans fund and the loan size to poor households closed to poverty line and households just escaped poverty line taking into consideration the current changing socio-economic situation, in order to ensure sustainable eradication of poverty of these households. It was suggested that WU and the Bank should conduct more workshops and training to share the experience on effective loan useage and loan management.

Mr. Nguyen Van Giau, member of the Central Party ‘s Executive Committee, the Governor of Vietnam State Bank and the Board Director of SPB, confirmed that VWU is a prestigious organization, making up a majority shares among mass organizations performing trust service (account 40% of the total outstanding loans of SPB). He hopes the WU will continue to well perform their stages of the trust service contract, in cooperation with SPB and other socio-political organizations to achieve the national goal of poverty alleviation.

At the conference, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa, member of the Central Party’s Executive Committee, the President of VWU addresses that: in the last 5 years, VWU and SPB have carried out a new model of trust service of credit policy program between the WU and the SPB. Mrs. Hoa also emphasizes that in the current situation of inflation, and raising price, the WU of all levels will make efforts to provide better trust service with increased outstanding loans, more women beneficiaries, increased loan size and more effective loan usage; VWU will also decrease the overdue rate, protect the capital, especially reduce the rate ofpoor women and poor households in Vietnam.

At the conference, many individuals and collectives received the certificates of merit from the VWU’s presidium for the excellent achievements in implementing the trust service, giving loans to the poor households and other social policy beneficiaries during the last 5 years.