On July 26th, 2019, the delegation of Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs, led by Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Dung, Deputy Director of the Department visited the DID project office in Hanoi. Hai Phong is one of 14 provinces/cities where STEP implements its pilot activities.

On behalf of Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms. Dung introduced the purpose of this visit is to exchange information as well as to explain the requirements of reporting activities of foreign NGOs in Hai Phong. In addition, Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs wants to receive humanitarian and development aids from DID for Vietnam in general and Hai Phong city in particular. Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs would like to invite STEP representatives to visit its office in the coming time.

Mr. Claude Lafond, STEP Field Project Director, representative of DID in Vietnam gave an introduction about DID, Desjardins group and DID’s project in Vietnam. He also emphasized the long-term traditional friendship between DID – Canada and Vietnam, which was built in 1994 when Desjardins experts were sent to Vietnam to support developing the people’s credit fund model in Viet Nam. Until now, DID has cooperated with Co-opBank to continuously support the development of Vietnam People’s Credit Fund network through STEP project.

Mr. Claude Lafond expressed his sincere thanks to the delegation and acknowledges their contributed remarks. He hopes to continue the fruitful cooperation with Hai Phong and visit Department of Foreign Affairs in the coming time.