Germany backs green finance

Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance, the State Bank and the GIZ’s Macroeconomic Reform Programme co-organise a June 25 ‘Introduction to Green Finance and Green Banking’ workshop to exchange perspectives on international experience and Vietnam’s initial activities and policies in relation to green finance and banking.

According to GTZ’s statement, the workshop is held within the framework of the GIZ’s Macroeconomic Reform Programme in Vietnam as commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

It is also one of the very first programmes, in which the GIZ performed its advisory function since its inception in Vietnam in 1993.

At this workshop, experts from Germany, the United Kingdom and France presented global green fiscal and environmental taxes experience within the framework of fiscal policy reform and provided a specific background on green credit line in developed countries.

In addition, the sharing of experience in the implementation of green policies in several countries and green finance development programmes helped participants understand more clearly the similar activities at global scale.

On the Vietnamese side, presenters clarified the interaction between growth strategy and green finance and other issues related to environmental taxes and risks in bank credit and listing of securities.

Policy frameworks have been initiated and become preconditions for ministries, agencies, research institutes and universities to make continued contribution through their feedback, recommendations and planning to specific and long term policies.

Those are done with a view to encouraging financial institutions, banks and financial firms to conduct green finance and green credit programmes for the implementation of the government’s green growth strategy in the future.

Global experience shows that it is essential to attain social consensus and coordination among ministries and agencies in the implementation of the green growth strategy in order to balance the environment and economic growth.

“As for emerging countries like Vietnam, green finance and green banking have a significantly important role to play and need to involve all economic sectors since the very beginning apart from instruments of tax and fiscal policy given the limited resources of the State budget,” according to associate professor, doctor Nguyen Kim Anh, director general of the State Bank’s Department of Organisation and Personnel.

The national green growth strategy for 2011-2020 with a vision to 2050 was approved by Vietnamese government in September, 2012.

The implementation of the green growth strategy and the climate change strategy issued in 2011 would not only contribute to environmental protection, gas emission mitigation, energy efficiency, job creation and a better quality of life but also prove useful in the economic shift and restructuring and create sustainable development for the economy and the country as a whole, according to GTZ.