Japan will provide loans totally worth 58.18 billion JPY (about 700 million USD) as its first commitment in the 2010 fiscal year for three projects in Vietnam.

The beneficiaries are the Nhat Tan Bridge project (phase II) with 24.828 billion JPY, the Nghi Son thermal power station (phase II) with 29.852 billion JPY and the Ninth Poverty Reduction Support Credit (PRSC) Programme with 3.5 billion JPY.

The three agreements were signed in Hanoi on January 24 by representatives of the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The year 2011 marks the 19 th consecutive year that the Japanese Government has provided official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam . Japan is Vietnam ’s largest provider of ODA, with a total commitment of over 1.45 trillion JPY (more than 15 billion USD).

Over the past few years, projects using Japanese ODA have mainly been involved in infrastructure development, including energy, transport, ports and telecommunications. They have all made important contributions to Vietnam ’s socio-economic development./.