Accordingly, the program will continue to receive applications from March 28 to the end of April 29, 2022. Eligible entrants must be Vietnamese citizens who own at least 51 percent women-owned enterprises that have operated for at least one year.
Dang Tuyet Dung, Director of Visa Vietnam, said that the Visa She’s Next Grant Program, in partnership with IFundWomen, will provide three winning Vietnamese businesses with grants of USD 10,000, along with a one-year IFundWomen Coaching membership and chances to join IFundWomen’s chain of conferences and entrepreneurs’ connections events.
She said that Visa estimates that women-owned enterprises are in need of about USD 1.19 billion of capital without having found funding sources. The Visa She’s Next Grant Program will strive to narrow down the gap by providing the capital to help women entrepreneurs realize their business goals.
The program will be built basing on Visa's commitments to improve the digitalization capacity for more than 50 million small-sized businesses across the globe.
Alongside, Visa will also implement a number of other useful programs that encourage consumers to support local firms and accompany small- and medium-sized enterprises in the digital transformation process.
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Minh, Chairwoman of Vietnam Women Entrepreneurs Council (VWEC) said that not only women enterprises but the whole business community highly value Visa’s support in promoting business growth.
She said that in Vietnam, women have made 40 percent of total national assets, while women laborers account for 48.4 percent of the country’s workforce. Vietnam has led Southeast Asian countries in the increase of the number of women-led enterprises.
However, 37 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises have got sufficient conditions and opportunities to access banks’ loans over the past two year. The ratio is lower compared to 47 percent of men-led firms.
In this context, the She’s Next Grant Program is expected to become a motivation for women entrepreneurs and women-led firms to work harder and develop ideas innovative ideas.
Source: VNA