At the conference (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Social policy credit has lifted more than 2 million ethnic minority households outof poverty as of August 31, said Director General of the Vietnam Bank forSocial Policies (VBSP) Duong Quyet Thang at a conference in Hanoi on September25.
It has alsocreated jobs for more than 162,000 ethnic minority workers, including some 16,000 people working abroad onfixed-term contracts, and funded the construction of 215,000 houses for those from difficult backgrounds, Thang told the conference to review the effectiveness of socialpolicy credit for ethnic minorities in Vietnam, held by the VBSP and the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs.
About 211,000disadvantaged ethnic minority students have been offered student loans topursue further education, he added.
More than 1.4million borrowers from the VBSP were ethnic minority people who have taken outapproximately 136 trillion VND (5.84 billion USD) in soft loans, and outstanding balance for ethnic minoritypeople at the bank exceeds 49.6 trillion VND, accounting for 24.8 percent of the total outstandingbalance, the director general said.
Social policycredit has changed their way of thinking, allowing many ethnic minority people to overcome their inferiority complex toapply for a loan, and successfully develop their own business. The preferentialcredit has also helped hampered loan sharks, he said.
Soft credit isone of the 54 exclusivepolicies designed for ethnic minority groups and a bright spot in sustainablepoverty reduction, said Truong Thi Mai, head of the Party Central Committee’sCommission for Mass Mobilisation. Disadvantaged ethnic minority people havebecome more independent with greater responsibility for their livelihood ratherthan relying on others’ support, according to Mai.
Such a change in thinking has heightened theirchances of sustainablyescaping poverty, she said.
According tostatistics from the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam’spoverty rate declined from 14.75 percent to 4.25 percent from 2007 – 2015 andfrom 8.23 percent to 5.35 percent from 2016 – 2018 .
Governor ofthe State Bank of Vietnam Le Minh Hung said the central bank has submitted tothe Government a financeproposal which outlines solutions to provide easier access to capital andfinancial services for poor and vulnerable people in remote areas. Thesolutions include the applicationof new technologies at a low cost to better serve people in these disadvantaged areas, he said./.
VNA
