The Policy Research Institute (PRI) has been conducting a technical cooperation project on SME finance with the Lao Development Bank (LDB), which is a state-owned commercial bank in the Lao PDR, in conjunction with the Japan Finance Corporation, Micro Business and Individual Unit (JFC-Micro) since June 2011.

       The purpose of this ongoing project is to improve the LDB’s capacity building, as well as its credit analysis ability, by providing JFC-Micro’s “know-how”.

       To this end, we have provided three supporting programs for branch managers and branch staff of the LDB. We provided lectures on various topics including credit analysis methods, credit management support for entrepreneurs, and capacity building of JFC-Micro.

       We held the seminar in two cities in the Lao PDR, namely in Xiengkhouang and Vientiane, from August 27 to September 5, 2013. We conducted lectures on credit analysis methods, which include industry-classified points to be checked, by utilizing case-studies for 131 participants who are responsible for this task.

       Active discussions took place with a lot of questions raised by participants on JFC-Micro’s credit analysis methods, indicating that the seminar was fruitful due to high level of interests among the participants.

       We are now approaching the final stage of the project. In order to measure the effectiveness of the project and how the LDB makes the best of the “know-how” which we have transferred so far, we discussed the schedule for the above overall goal with the LDB and it was decided that we would hold the final assessment in the Lao PDR in the middle of November 2013.

                 【Lecture in Xiengkhouang】

【Participants in Vientiane round】