HCM City’s Capital Aid Fund for Employment of the Poor was on Sunday renamed the Capital Aid for Employment of the Poor MicroFinance Institution Ltd (CEP) and brought under the Law On Credit Institutions.

"The upgrade is very important for us in promoting our activities to serve poor workers in southern provinces," Nguyen Thi Hong Van, general director of the fund, said.

In 1991 the HCM City Confederation of Labour established the Capital Aid Fund for Employment of the Poor based on the Bangladesh Grameen model to create jobs for unemployed and self-employed workers in the city and eight provinces in the south-east and the Mekong Delta.

Its mission is to work with, and for, the poor and poorest to realise sustained improvements in well-being, through the provision of financial and complementary non-financial services in an efficient and sustainable manner.

It seeks to provide microcredit for starting and developing small businesses, reduce poverty by creating income generating activities among the poor to enable a gradual increase in well-being, involve the poor in building solidarity, teamwork, shared responsibilities and a sense of community in maintaining a clean environment and healthy social conditions and expand microfinance to reach as many poor as possible.

"The most challenge is how to mobilise capital because this is a non-profit institution and we hope HCM City authorities will provide more medium-term loans to the fund," Bui Van Cuong, chairman of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labour, said.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee, said: "HCM City will provide every support to the CEP and hope the institution continues with its great accomplishments in supporting poor workers."

By 2016 the fund had gradually expanded its outreach to serve 330,000 people through 34 branches in HCM City and the provinces of Ben Tre, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Dong Thap, Long An, Tay Ninh, Tien Giang, and Vinh Long with total loans of around VND3 trillion (US$130 million). — VNS