2025.07.30
On July 29, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) held a signing ceremony with Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank (VPBank) in the capital city Hanoi of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for a loan agreement under the Private Sector Investment Finance scheme.
This project supports the expansion of sustainable finance (*) in Vietnam through co-financing with FinDev Canada, Export Finance Australia (EFA), British International Investment (BII), and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). It applies the “SMBC-JICA Sustainable Finance Framework,” established by SMBC and JICA to advance sustainable finance in financial markets. This is also JICA’s first direct co-financing project with BII.
Signing Ceremony
WMSME client and VPBank staff
Terms and Amount of Loan
1. Investee
Vietnam Prosperity Joint Stock Commercial Bank
2. Country (Target Areas)
Socialist Republic of Viet Nam
3. Investment Amount
100 million USD
4. Project Title
Women-owned Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Support Project
5. Project Purpose
This project aims to improve access to finance for women-owned micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam by providing long-term loans to VPBank, thereby contributing to sustainable economic growth in the country.
6. Project Component
In Vietnam, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) account for over 97% of all businesses and more than 36% of total employment, playing a crucial role in the country’s economy. However, women-owned MSMEs (WMSMEs) represent only about 20% of all MSMEs. WMSMEs tend to remain small in scale and face significant challenges in accessing financial services.
As JICA’s second project with VPBank aimed at promoting financial inclusion for WMSMEs, this loan will be exclusively utilized to support lending to WMSMEs, thereby improving their access to finance. The project also contributes to the “2X Challenge,” an initiative launched at the G7 Summit in 2018 to encourage investment that promotes gender equality.
7. Contribution to SDGs
Goal 5 (Gender equality)
Goal 8 (Decent work and economic growth)
Goal 9 (Industry, innovation and infrastructure)
Goal 17 (Partnerships for the goals)
The Framework utilizes JICA’s experience as a development finance institution for identifying development challenges, project monitoring, and project impact evaluation. This Framework adopts common impact evaluation and monitoring measures for SMBC and JICA’s co-financing projects, to share and manage the results of development impacts created by the borrowers. By introducing common measures, the Framework has obtained third-party opinions from external evaluation bodies, which confirm its alignment and compliance with internationally-recognized guidelines and principles for the achievement of SDGs (**). Through the Framework, JICA will further collaborate with SMBC, mobilize more private funds to developing countries, and contribute to their socio-economic development.
(*) Sustainable Finance refers to the utilization of financial services integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into investment decisions, to address challenges for a sustainable economy and society.
(**) The Green Bond Principles, Social Bond Principles, and Sustainability Bond Guidelines of the International Capital Market Association, and the Green Loan Principles and Sustainability Linked Loan Principles of the Loan Market Association.
Sns share!
scroll