The corporate partnership is the Singapore-based firm's third since its launch into Vietnam last November.
Validus Vietnam, the Vietnam entity of small and medium enterprise (SME) financing platform Validus Capital, is partnering NaFoods Group to provide the firm and agricultural SMEs in its ecosystem, such as farmers and distributors, with business financing.
Nafoods,which is is also backed by International Finance Corporation (IFC), is an agri-food business and manufacturer that integrates agricultural processing from farm to distribution.
Vietnam's agricultural sector grew 29 percent in 2018 and is worth $438 billion. By providing business financing, Validus hopes to help these SMEs to grow Vietnam's agricultural production value chain and regional exports, which accounts for 10 percent of the country's GDP and supports 40 percent of its total employment, it said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Vietnam Opportunity
Despite employing 97 percent of the country's workforce, SMEs in Vietnam face a $21-billion financing gap Validus said, citing data by the Asian Development Bank.
The firm established an office in the country in October, following its earlier expansion into Indonesia. Validus co-founder Nikhilesh Goel leads the Vietnam office, along with COO Amrit Kapoor and chief business officer Tran Thi Thuy Ha.
Validus has already inked partnerships in Vietnam with pharmacy group Medicare Vietnam and Unicons, part of leading private construction enterprise Coteccons Group.
