VWU President visits Germany and Switzerland
With more than 200 years of development for the community’s benefits, the German Savings Banks Finance Group, with 417 savings bank members and nearly 51% of the domestic market share, and the SBFIC are a good source of experiences for other finance organizations in different countries. The savings banks are aware of their mission of serving everyone and every transaction and have been actively communicating and educating people, since their childhood, on savings and basic individual and households financial management skills. The SBFIC’s experiences and manuals on financial education would support the VWU in promoting its education on savings and capacity building on credit-savings for its staff.
In Germany, the delegation had meetings with representatives from the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to learn their experiences in state management on women and family affairs; proposing and implementing policies on women and to discuss cooperation possibilities between the two countries in women and social fields.
At the meeting with the SBFIC, the two sides discussed and agreed upon the future cooperation orientation. The SBFIC Managing Director committed that SBFIC would support the VWU in its microfinance activities, especially its idea of establishing the Vietnam Women’s Savings Bank.
For the past 9 years, the SBFIC has supported TYM - the first licensed microfinance institution of the VWU – in implementing the “TYM Development Project” and then participating in a regional project on microfinance (together with Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar).
Under the framework of this visit, the delegation also had meetings with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Federal Office for Gender Equality (FOGE) under the Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs. Moreover, on this occasion, the delegates had a friendly exchange meeting with a number of core members of the Switzerland - Vietnam Friendship Association at the Vietnamese Embassy in Switzerland. At the meeting, VWU President Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa updated the friends with information about China’s illegal placement of drilling rig in Vietnamese waters and received their support and commitments in supporting Vietnam’s struggle for national sovereignty.
The working visit was successful. The knowledge and experience gained during this visit would serve as useful references for the VWU in preparing for the establishment of the Women’s Savings Bank as well as in strengthening the cooperation with partners in Germany and Switzerland.
