The Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) have provided preferential loans for 1.4 million poor and near-poor households and policy beneficiaries in the Mekong Delta region between 2011-2014. The loans enabled 230,000 of the targeted households to escape from poverty and 29,000 students to continue their study, and helped create 88,000 job opportunities and build 554,000 clean water supply facilities and toilets. The assistance contributed to regional joint efforts to reduce poverty rate to only 5.7% in 2014, heard a conference to review results of a three-year project to improve service quality of policy credit in the region on January 20. After three years, the VBSP had a total credit balance of VND22.4 trillion ($1.12 billion), up VND5.5 trillion since the project began. The region’s average credit growth remained at 10.76% annually, above the national rate of 7.76%. Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Le Vinh Tan suggested several measures to reduce overdue debts for the VBSP and Mekong Delta provinces, including clearer identification of benefiting households and more transparent loan procedures. In 2015, the bank targets a credit growth of 9% with the rate of overdue debts at 0.7%, below the regional average. (vietnamplus.vn Jan 21)
