Hanoi (VNA) – Vice President of the Cuban Council of State Salvador Valdes Mesa on June 21 had a working session with the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank) to learn about the agricultural finance mechanism.
The session is expected to open up more cooperation opportunities between Vietnam and Cuba in general and in the field of agricultural development in particular, especially in agricultural credit.
At the working session, State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Deputy Governor Nguyen Kim Anh said that Agribank has established agency relationship with several Cuban commercial banks, creating a foundation to boost credit payments for the two countries’ businesses.
However, the agency relationship is just a first step, the SBV official said, adding that the two countries’ banks should boost their affiliation in order to meet the demands of payment and investment.
Agribank is the largest state-owned commercial bank in Vietnam in terms of total assets, operating network and customer base.
Following a memorandum of understanding on information exchanges regarding banking inspection and supervision activities between the State Bank of Vietnam and Cuba’s central bank signed in September last year, Agribank set up agency relationship with Cuban BISCA bank on January 22, 2016.
From 2014 to 2015, the Vietnamese bank sent three delegations to Cuba to seek cooperation opportunities.-VNA