Not yet fully exploited development potential

In our country, the trend of women taking leadership roles in the private economic sector is gradually becoming more popular. Women-owned SMEs play an important role in creating jobs, generating income, improving the status of women and achieving gender equality. However, women-owned SMEs still face many obstacles from the start-up stage to standing firm in the market such as: small scale, weak financial resources and competitiveness; limited business management capacity and access to information and technology. Especially when women are business owners, they face a lot of pressure due to having to balance work and family life. These reasons make women-owned SMEs unable to fully exploit their development potential.

Ms. Chu Hong Minh, senior financial expert of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), assessed that along with the common efforts on gender equality, Vietnam has gradually introduced policies and solutions to support female start-ups, enterprises employing many female workers, especially SMEs owned by women. In recent times, the banking system has considered this group as one of the priority groups for supporting and providing credit, especially during the complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bank staff conduct credit appraisal at the company's warehouse. Photo: PHU SON

According to Ms. Vu Minh Chau, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation, State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), implementing the Government 's direction, the banking sector always identifies SMEs as one of the five priority areas for credit investment. In recent times, SBV has coordinated with banks in the system to actively implement many solutions and support policies to remove difficulties for SMEs in accessing capital sources.

At the same time, we have implemented preferential policies on interest rates and credit, proactively approached and introduced many priority programs and products to support SMEs to remove difficulties for customers and businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, we have made efforts to promote the bank-business connection program to resolve difficulties, obstacles and recommendations of businesses. Thanks to that, bank credit capital invested in the SME sector and women-owned SMEs has increased over the years.

To provide timely support to women-owned SMEs facing financial difficulties during the Covid-19 pandemic, ADB has implemented a project to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on SMEs with a total value of 5 million USD since April 2021, in which the managing agency is the State Bank of Vietnam and 5 participating banks (BIDV, ACB, SHB , TPBank and VPBank). Accompanying businesses and banks, the State Bank of Vietnam also coordinated with ADB to conduct research and assessments to understand and grasp the difficulties and obstacles facing women-owned SMEs in business activities.

Develop appropriate financial products

Some female SME leaders said that although they had borrowed capital from banks, when there were changes in lending policies from time to time, they still had difficulty accessing capital. The reasons were that they had not provided sufficient financial reports as required for capital appraisal, there was a lack or absence of collateral, and the business plan did not demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness...

A representative of the Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) said that it is necessary to simplify procedures and documents so that women-owned SMEs can access and receive support from government policies. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the quality of business support services for these groups in localities; honor and recognize the contributions of these businesses to promote women's participation in socio-economic development.

Mr. Cat Toan Luan, Deputy Director of the Center for Management and Promotion of Corporate Customers, Saigon-Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) shared about increasing the efficiency of lending activities for women-owned SMEs with lessons on increasing support and funding; training and skill development; building networks and connections; encouraging innovation and creativity; building trust.

International financial consultant Reuben Jessop made recommendations to the State Bank of Vietnam and policymakers such as: Promoting lending to women-owned businesses as a proactive precaution to protect banks from loan portfolio declines; improving credit guarantee mechanisms and advisory services to work more effectively for SMEs.

There is also a need to build knowledge and expertise for financial institutions focused on women-owned businesses. In addition, financial institutions need to track gender-disaggregated data; develop strategies specifically for women-owned SMEs; and develop appropriate products and services for these groups.

NGUYEN ANH VIET