The Hon Prime Minister, Charlot Salwai, raised concerns when he met the Bred Bank International Director Mr Regis Barriac over the Bank's extensive bureaucracy, demanding rules and processes now causing reluctance by the Vanuatu population in opening Bank accounts and preventing grassroots, in particular farmers, from investing and acquiring loans from the Bank.
The Hon Prime Minister further shared with the Director Vanuatu's Blacklist issue and sought advice and assistance in getting the Government cleared. The Hon Prime Minister also seized the opportunity to query on the offer made by the Bank to fund Vanuatu's Diplomatic presence in Paris.
The Director in response confirmed BRED's commitment to engage with AFD and the Bank of France to assist the Reserve Bank and the Government in rescuing Vanuatu from the Blacklist Status. Bred has done the same in Djibouti and confirmed it's commitment to assist Vanuatu in this regard given Vanuatu is BRED's first international country of investment followed by Djibouti.
The BRED Director further confirmed that he will undertake a mission to Port Vila to further explore the issues raised by the Hon Prime Minister and have the bureaucracy issues resolved to ensure BRED Bank remains Vanuatu's first bank of choice.
BRED Bank's commitment is also in line with President Macron's vision to strengthen France's presence in the arc of the Pacific through the reopening of the AFD presence in the Pacific Island Countries.