World Bank Country Director for Vietnam Ousmane Dione (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam has been growing at 6percent plus over the past few years and this is indicative of thecontributions of women to business and the economy, World Bank Country Directorfor Vietnam Ousmane Dione has said in a recent interview granted to the VietnamNews Agency.
The followingis the full text of the interview.
Why is it important to support women tostart and run businesses? What do you think about the role of women-ledbusinesses in an economy?
Constraints on access to financial services forwomen lead to constrains on economic activity - when women suffer, the economysuffers. When women do well, society benefits. Financial inclusion increaseswomen’s power to make decisions within the family, household, community, andwithin society. It is also well documented that female-controlled financesresult in higher spending on household necessities such as food and water, andchild welfare, including school fees and health care. Empowering women bygiving them control over their finances is not just smart economics, it is keyto ending poverty. Supporting women to start and run businesses contributesdirectly to this objective.
Women led businesses play an important role in anyeconomy. Formal and informal SMEs account for more than 90 percent ofenterprises in the economy and contribute about 50 to 60 percent of employmentin the world. Women-led SMEs make up a sizable portion of this market. Of theapproximately 40 million formal SMEs globally, about a third or 12 million, arewomen-owned. Seven million of these women-owned SMEs are in the developingworld. Empowering female entrepreneurs, especially those in high-growth sectors, suchas manufacturing or IT, has the potential to create jobs, increase incomes,lift millions out of poverty, and lead to greater economic and socialtransformation.
What dowomen entrepreneurs need to be successful in their business?
Women entrepreneurial activity is often concentratedin low productivity sectors, such as restaurants and food services, withlimited potential for growth in income and employment and that often operateinformally. Moreover, empiricalevidence suggests that female entrepreneurs are often facing many obstacles to growtheir businesses from micro or small to medium or large productive enterpriseswith transformational economic impact. Empowering female entrepreneurs, paving the way for theirbusiness to growth, creating favorable conditions for women to enter high-growthsectors, are crucial for job creation, income increase and poverty reduction.
What do you think about Vietnamese women’spotential for and capacity of doing business?
Vietnamesewomen are extremely entrepreneurial and hard working. They contributesignificantly to household income, and by and large they are supported by theirhusbands and families. Vietnamhas been growing at 6 percent plus over the past few years and this isindicative of the contributions of women to business and the economy.
[Vietnamese female entrepreneurs empowered]
Some women-run enterprises in Vietnam have movedto stretch their reach to the world such as Vietjet Air, TH True Milk andVinamilk. What do you think about their performance?
Thisis very inspiring and I think this is testament to the potential of Vietnamese womenentrepreneurs and their positive contributions to the country economy. I alsothink that many Vietnamese women entrepreneurs can serve as role models for thenext generation of younger women entrepreneurs. Further Regional Integrationand ASEAN provide substantial growth opportunities and access to larger marketsand value chains that can continue to provide growth opportunities for womenled businesses in Vietnam.It is imperative though that the government also recognize this potential andease some of the constraints facing women entrepreneurs.
Vietnam ranked 19th inthe Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017 and was placed 7th in terms of the rate of women business owners, 31.4 percent. What do you thinkabout these rankings?
This is impressive and Vietnam shouldcongratulate itself for these rankings. Nevertheless, there is always room forimprovement and to further move up the rankings by creating a conduciveenvironment to foster women entrepreneurs.
What should relevant agencies of Vietnam do toencourage more women to do business?
Toencourage more women to do business in Vietnam, relevant agencies should:
- Addressconstraints stemming from social norms and subjective preferences that arebiased against women entrepreneurs,
- Raise awareness of thebusiness case for serving women-owned SMEs.
- Supportwomen entrepreneurs to cross over into higher value-added and more productiveactivities through the provision of business development skills (training onhow to run a business),
- Addressingconstraints on access to finance for women, such as lack of collateral,reducing necessary documentation;
- Articulatingthe market opportunity for serving women-owned SMEs will help financialinstitutions design tailored financial products and services
- Addressingany other legal and institutional constraints that may constrain womenentrepreneurs.
[Vietnamese women in fascinating start-up culture]
Does the World Bank have any cooperationprograms with Vietnamto support women entrepreneurship?
A substantial proportion ofwomen entrepreneurs remain unserved by financial institutions in Vietnam. TheWorld Bank has an extensive technical assistance program to expand financialinclusion in Vietnam.Part of this support is to address the financing constraints for the Micro andSmall Enterprise (MSE’s) sector in Vietnam, of which a substantialproportion are led by women.
MSEs are critical to thecountry’s emerging market-based economy and are critical to contribute toemployment, poverty reduction and growth, however in recent years we have seenslower growth in this important sector. Vietnam’s Ministry of Justicereported that MSEs make up 97 percent of the number of enterprises with well over 400,000 businesses; roughly 67 percent, 28 percent, and 2 percent of businesses are micro, smalland medium enterprises, respectively. Furthermore, the IMF reported that MSEs contributed to over 40 percent of thecountry’s GDP in 2015 and made up 20 percent of Vietnam’s total exports.Therefore this is an important sector to support.
The World Bank Group is keento take part in high level seminars and workshops to highlight the importanceof women entrepreneurs and the need to support them drawing from othercountries successful experiences.
Thank you very much.-VNA
