Each morning, the food stall of Duong Thi Thanh Tuyen on Vuon Lai Street in District 12 is full of diners. While she is busing preparing orders, her husband is enthusiastically serving their customers. He is also in charge of the grocery store here as well. The places on a surface area of 4m2 used to be too shabby due to old age, but received financial support from the local authorities last year. Thanks to their help, she successfully borrowed VND50 million (US$1,965) from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies to upgrade her store and food stall. At last, she was able to increase the family’s earnings and even save some money for her child’s school fee.
Sharing a similarly happy story is Le Thi Hieu from An Phu Dong Ward of District 12. She used to be a freelance tailor and had unstable income. Even with the salary of her husband as a worker, her family found much financial trouble. In 2023, she decided to open a small-scale coffee shop but did not have enough money to carry out the plan. The timely support from the local authorities for her to loan money in the poverty reduction program helped her address that problem, and now she is enjoying a more promising life with a brighter future.
Vice Chairman Huynh Thanh Tung of the People’s Committee of An Phu Ward in District 12 shared that there are now 11 teams in the ward to help people loan money for poverty reduction purposes. The ward itself also regularly checks poor households in the area for any capital needs to provide prompt support so that these needy people do not come to ‘black credit’ organizations.
Director of the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies – District 12 Branch said that in 2023 the budget greenlighted by Resolution 98 was able to aid more than 3,400 laborers to find new or maintain current jobs while providing capital for 414 poor families and 154 near-poor ones to have a more stable income source. The figures for the first 4 months of 2024 were 1,224 laborers, 51 poor families, and 59 near-poor ones respectively. These have effectively contributed to improving the living standards of poor laborers and implementing the sustainable poverty reduction program in the 2021-2025 period.
Deputy Director Nguyen Tang Minh of the HCMC Department of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs shared that when adopting Resolution 98 in 2023, HCMC delivered an additional amount of VND2.8 trillion ($110 million) to the available loan for poverty reduction and job seeking aid. The Vietnam Bank for Social Policies – HCMC Branch disbursed 100 percent of the allocated money, including VND547 billion ($21.5 million) for poverty reduction among 9,271 households, VND2.25 trillion ($88.4 million) for job seeking aid.
In 2024, HCMC adds another VND998 billion ($39 million) to this sum, and 78,7 percent had been successfully disbursed by April 30. It is expected that by the end of the second quarter, the disbursement proportion will have reached 100 percent. In the last quarter, all localities in the city are going to check possible cases in need of money for poverty reduction in their area to prepare a report for the necessary capital in 2025, estimated to be VND1 trillion ($39.3 million).
Deputy Director of the HCMC Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs commented that Resolution 98 does help to address congestion in loan amounts for poverty reduction and job seeking purposes. It has profound meaning in ensuring social security and sustainable poverty reduction, particularly when the unemployment rate is on the rise. The accessible loan sums have helped the poor stay away from ‘black credit’ organizations while still able to stabilize their life thanks to steady income.
