The Vietnam Challenge Fund (VNCF) has effectively assisted the development of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as hunger eradication and poverty reduction in disadvantaged areas.

At the conference to review the two-year operation of the fund in Hanoi on June 4, President of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Nguyen Tien Loc praised it as a creative project.

“Despite its risky investment, the fund has made active contributions to hunger eradication in its targeted provinces,” he stressed.

Over the past two years, the VNCF has backed eight projects, ranging from agriculture, fishery, handicraft, to vocational training in the northern provinces of Thanh Hoa, Bac Giang, Quang Ninh, Bac Kan and Yen Bai.

Director of the Green Ocean Development and Investment Joint Stock Company Vu Huy Thu, one of the VNCF’s beneficiaries, said that his company’s project to protect and sustainably develop a marine worm species has opened up a new direction for aquaculture in Vietnam.

It has also generated jobs for local workers and equipped local people with knowledge on protecting the highly endangered worm species (scientifically known as Sipunculus nudus Linnaeus) as well as the ecological environment in Quang Ninh province, he added.

Through projects, VNCF has also helped build schools and workshops and procure machinery and equipment in service of vocational training poor people with disabilities in Bac Giang province, and open refresher courses for female and ethnic executives of small enterprises.

Lam Van Thuong, a Tay ethnic man in Lao Cai province, praised a business start-up training course under the VNCF’s project, saying it provided him with business knowledge managerial skill.

The VNCF, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and managed by the VCCI Business Development Institute, was launched in 2008 to promote business and production creativeness and contribute to socio-economic development./.