Nghe An: Effective credit policies for ethnic minorities
(Baonghean.vn) - After 20 years of formation and development, policy credit in ethnic minority and mountainous areas has truly been a bridge and a fishing rod for people to rise up, stabilize their lives, and gradually narrow the gap between regions. Thanks to that, ethnic minority and Western Nghe An regions have developed comprehensively, contributing to stabilizing border security and realizing the national goal of sustainable poverty reduction.
Hand over the "fishing rod"
Seeing the Ky Son people flocking to the city and industrial zones to work as workers, Mr. Vu Tong Po (born in 1979) in Muong Long 1 village, Muong Long commune wondered: “Why are our people diligent but not escaping poverty, not finding ways to get rich right in their homeland? Why are the strong products worthy of being specialties such as black chicken, black pig, local beef, plums, peaches, etc. not becoming goods for sale?”
From those painful feelings, Mr. Po started doing business with the native black chicken, registering for a loan of 30 million VND from the Social Policy Bank. In addition, he and his wife planted more corn fields to feed the chickens, both to support the cost of food and to make the chicken meat firmer and sweeter.
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Mr. Vu Tong Po in Muong Long 1 village, Muong Long commune chooses native black chickens to develop the economy. Photo provided by the bank |
With the guidance of the Farmers' Association, in 2019, Mr. Po borrowed an additional preferential loan of 70 million VND from the Social Policy Bank to expand the scale of his chicken flock, expand the service of selling both meat chickens and native black chicken breeds, and at the same time mobilized the establishment of the Black Chicken Farmer Association, then the Black Chicken Farmer Association with 15 households (36 members) participating.
Currently, in addition to investing in raising buffalo, cows, and local black chickens, the family also combines a homestay community tourism model - becoming one of the first families to register to build a community hostel to serve tourists coming to Muong Long. Developing tourism, beautifying the landscape, and participating in tourism services in Muong Long commune creates a closed economic model, thereby developing strong products and specialties such as black chicken, local cows, growing clean vegetables; renovating and planting more plum and peach gardens.
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| Many poor households borrow capital from the Policy Bank to raise cows and develop the economy. Photo: Thu Huyen |
Mr. Vu Tong Po's family is a typical example in Ky Son district of using policy credit capital to escape poverty. With a developed family economy and a good understanding of the unique cultural values of the Mong people, he actively participates in community activities, propagating the Party's policies and guidelines, and the State's policies and laws to his fellow countrymen.
Mr. Hoang Son Lam - Deputy Director of the Social Policy Bank, concurrently Director of the District Transaction Office said: "Prioritizing loan capital for poor households and ethnic minority households in communes in extremely difficult and border areas has helped people feel secure in production and business, gradually rising up to escape poverty sustainably, the annual poverty rate has gradually decreased".
According to the Ky Son District Social Policy Bank, 5,751 poor households have received loans to escape poverty. Borrowers have invested in buying more than 80,000 buffaloes and cows, creating more than 60,000 jobs for workers. Policy credit has also helped 415 people get loans to work abroad; 655 students feel secure in their studies; helped poor households build 2,615 houses; together with the people, build and repair more than 3,000 clean water and environmental sanitation works, contributing to increasing the rate of rural households using clean water and using standard sanitation works compared to before.
As the gateway to Western Nghe An, recently, the economy of Con Cuong district has continued to maintain a fairly high growth rate; the economic structure has shifted strongly towards ecology, tourism, and the socio-economic center of the Southwest Nghe An region. The above results have contributed significantly to social policy credit activities.
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| Ms. Lang Thi Luyen's family in Tong Xan village, Thach Ngan commune (Con Cuong) next to their spacious house. Photo: Thu Huyen |
Ten years ago, the family of Ms. Lang Thi Luyen and Mr. Lo Van Tham in Tong Xan village, Thach Ngan commune (Con Cuong) had to live in a dilapidated, shabby, and tattered house; every time there was a storm, the family was always in fear. Life changed since 2019, when they were able to borrow 25 million VND from poor households, selling acacia, buffaloes, and cows to invest in building more houses.
After building a decent house, in 2021, the couple borrowed an additional 50 million VND to escape poverty and buy buffaloes and cows to develop the economy. “With the opportunity to borrow money to build a house and stabilize our lives, my wife and I are now focusing on doing business. To have money to pay off the bank loan, my family opened a savings account to pay off the debt,” said Mr. Lo Van Tham.
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Staff of the Social Policy Bank and representatives of local savings and loan groups visited the family of Ms. Lang Thi Luyen in Tong Xan village, Thach Ngan commune (Con Cuong). Photo: Thu Huyen |
In addition to housing assistance, the most important thing is that people are provided with livelihoods, training in developing production and livestock models, and scientific and technical guidance to escape poverty sustainably.
For example, Ms. Vi Thi Lien, Ke Trai village, Thach Ngan commune, in 2009 borrowed capital from the Bank for Policy on the poor household program to buy buffaloes and cows. With 2 piglets, she bred the pigs herself; now she has developed 14 pigs for meat; and raised 11 cows. Recently, she borrowed more capital to plant 2 hectares of acacia, cassava, and dig a pond to raise fish. During her free days, she works as a laborer to earn extra income to cover her daily expenses.
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| Ms. Vi Thi Lien in Ke Trai village, Thach Ngan commune (Con Cuong) invested in raising buffalo and cows with a loan from the Policy Bank. Photo: Thu Huyen |
“The policy loan has helped my mother and I a lot. Life is still difficult, but with the support of the consulting team, I must try to escape poverty in the future.”
Narrowing the gap between regions
Accompanying ethnic minorities in the process of economic development, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, the Social Policy Bank, Nghe An branch, has implemented many credit programs, with loan turnover reaching hundreds of billions of VND.
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| Officers of the Con Cuong District Policy Bank guide people to borrow policy loans. Photo: Thu Huyen |
Mr. Tran Khac Hung - Director of the Provincial Social Policy Bank said that in addition to credit serving production and business needs to create livelihoods and jobs, including: loans for poor households, near-poor households, households that have just escaped poverty, loans for production and business households in difficult areas, loans to create jobs, etc., there are many programs serving the livelihoods of ethnic minorities.
These are the socio-economic development loan program for ethnic minority and mountainous areas according to Decision No. 2085/2016/QD-TTg - a loan program to serve poor ethnic minority households to borrow capital to develop production and business with preferential interest rates equal to 50% compared to the interest rate of the poor household program, implemented by the transaction office since 2018; Production development loan program for ethnic minority households with special difficulties according to Decision No. 32/2007/QD-TTg dated March 5, 2007, Decision No. 54/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister; Loan program for poor ethnic minority households with difficult lives according to Decision No. 755/2013/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister; Loans to support ethnic minorities in planting production forests and developing livestock according to Decree No. 75/2015/ND-CP of the Government; Loans to support ethnic minorities according to Decision No. 2085/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister.
Western Nghe An accounts for nearly 84% of the province's total area, including 11 districts and towns; including 5 highland districts; is the main residence of ethnic minorities such as Thai, Tho, Mong, O Du, Kho Mu...
Policy capital has helped people in Western Nghe An to develop production, increase income and solve basic and essential problems of life. Mr. Luong Van Khanh - Deputy Head of the Provincial Ethnic Minorities Committee assessed that many households, from being afraid of borrowing and not daring to borrow, have now boldly borrowed capital and expanded effective business models, gradually improving the quality of life. People have access to capital from social policy credit to do business, create jobs, gradually improve their production and business management skills as well as their capital management ability to gradually escape poverty, get rich, contributing to preventing the evil of usury in rural areas and ethnic minority areas...
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| Officials from the Quy Hop District Policy Bank inspect the production model of households borrowing capital in the area. Photo: Thu Huyen |
However, according to Decision No. 861/QD-TTg dated June 4, 2021 of the Prime Minister, Nghe An has 76 extremely disadvantaged communes; by the end of 2021, it was still nearly 8.18% (according to the poverty line for the period 2016-2020), higher than the national average; in mountainous districts alone, it was 17.24%. In 2022, Nghe An was granted 150 billion VND to implement a preferential credit program for lending to ethnic minority and mountainous areas, however, to date, the districts have not announced the results of approving the list of beneficiaries. Therefore, localities need to promptly coordinate to review and determine capital needs to complete the disbursement plan of this program in 2022.
