Credit access in the Northern Mountainous Region of Vietnam: do ethnic minorities matter?

Abstract

By using the Bayesian Approach to address the problem of model uncertainty and a binary logit regression, this paper examines the credit accessibility of ethnic minority households compared to Kinh households in one of the poorest regions of Vietnam the Northern Mountainous Region. Analyses show that minorities have more disadvantages compared to the Kinh majority in terms of household endowments. Ethnic minorities are still much more limited to accessing overall rural credit, commercial credit and informal credit compared to the Kinh majority population. Although ethnic minorities are more likely to access preferential credit, they receive a smaller amount of loans in comparison to the Kinh households irrespective of loan sources. This study builds on previous research that shows that the lack of access to affordable credit can make it very difficult for the ethnic minorities to expand agricultural production and their household s livelihoods. Unless constraints with credit access are addressed, ethnic minorities might not benefit from the sustainable development of the country. Therefore, an improvement in access to credit and other resources needs more concern by national poverty reduction policies targeting ethnic minorities.