The signing ceremony was held in a hybrid format, combining in-person and online participation, with the main venue at the State Bank of Viet Nam and 33 online venues nationwide, one in each of 33 provinces and cities.
Addressing the signing ceremony, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Tuc affirmed that throughout thousands of years of nation-building and national defence, Vietnamese women had always been symbols of perseverance, intelligence, compassion and adaptability. In the new era of development, women are increasingly asserting their important role and directly contributing to the creation of socio-economic value.
According to the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister, women currently account for nearly half of the country's workforce, while women hold 30% of seats in the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the proportion of women-owned businesses ranks among the highest in the world. These realities affirm that women are key actors, a resource, a target and one of the important driving forces behind the country's renewal and development.
Highly appreciating the results of cooperation between the State Bank of Viet Nam and the Viet Nam Women's Union in recent years, the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged the efforts made by the two agencies to establish a close coordination mechanism and channel formal credit, particularly policy credit, to female union members through a grassroots network of tens of thousands of Savings and Credit Groups.
"This cooperation has not only established a safe and effective channel for channelling capital but has also helped millions of women adopt new approaches to economic development, proactively create livelihoods, increase their incomes and improve their living standards," Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Tuc said.
In recent years, the Party Central Committee has issued a system of strategic resolutions on socio-economic development. In these resolutions, women are consistently protected, provided with favourable conditions and given genuine opportunities to realise their potential and participate more extensively in economic activities. They are not merely beneficiaries of policies but are becoming genuine agents in creating jobs, generating income and adding value for their families and society. Capital, technology and management skills are key springboards for realising these important objectives.
According to the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister, the signing of the Coordination Programme for the 2026-2030 period is a concrete step towards implementing the Party's guidelines and the State's policies to remove financial resource bottlenecks facing women, laying the foundation for them to proactively seize development opportunities in the new era.
Another task that the Permanent Deputy Prime Minister particularly emphasised was diversifying financial access channels and promoting financial inclusion in conjunction with digital transformation. Accordingly, implementing the programme should not be the responsibility of only the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies or Agribank; rather, it requires the combined strength of the entire commercial banking system, microfinance institutions and other financial institutions.
Reflecting on the cooperation between the two agencies, said that over many years, the State Bank of Viet Nam and the Viet Nam Women's Union had implemented numerous programmes to translate monetary and banking policies and guidelines into practice, helping women gain easier access to credit and financial services to support production and business activities and improve their living standards.
Through their extensive operational networks, the Union's chapters at various levels have participated in receiving entrusted funds from the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies and coordinated the management of Savings and Credit Groups, ensuring that policy credit reaches the intended beneficiaries. They have also disseminated information, inspected and supervised the use of funds, and monitored the fulfilment of repayment obligations. By the end of 2025, the outstanding balance of loans entrusted through the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies to the Viet Nam Women's Union at all levels had exceeded 153.4 trillion VND, serving nearly 2.5 million customers.
The Union's chapters at various levels have also actively coordinated with Agribank to provide credit to union members through its Loan Groups. As of September 30, nearly 9,200 Agribank Loan Groups were managed by the Viet Nam Women's Union at various levels, with nearly 157,000 members holding outstanding loans totalling nearly 30 trillion VND.
