Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the conference (Photo VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The development of physical infrastructure as wellas educational and health infrastructureis essential to improve the living standards of people across the country,Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has said.
He made the statement at a conference in Hanoi on February 28 to review theimplementation of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee’s ResolutionNo.13-NQ/TW dated January 16, 2012 on building a synchronous infrastructuresystem in order to turn Vietnam into a modernity-oriented industrial country by2020.
The resolution requires focusing investment on transport infrastructure,electricity supply, irrigation networks, climate change adaptation and urbandevelopment.
From 2012, the Government promulgated an action programme to realise thisresolution.
PM Phuc recognised infrastructure development over the past years, but pointedout shortcomings in the field such as asynchronous planning and snail-speedimplementation of some projects.
Poor infrastructure also hinders thecountry’s development with urgent issues like traffic congestions and hospitaloverload.
The supplementation, revision andreform of mechanisms and institutions are needed to develop infrastructure, thePM said, underlining the proposal of the Ministry of Planning and Investment topromote public-private partnership (PPP) form.
He noted that when the economic scale has increased to over 5 quadrillion VND(218 billion USD) and the public debt reduced to 61 percent, it is necessary toweigh measures to seek financial resources from official development assistance(ODA), Government bonds, and international bonds for infrastructuredevelopment.
Vietnam's public and private sector infrastructure investment averaged5.7 percent of gross domestic product in recent years, the highest in SoutheastAsia and compares with 6.8 percent in China, according to the Asian DevelopmentBank. Indonesia and the Philippines spend less than 3 percent, whileMalaysia and Thailand spend even less at under 2 percent.
The ADB estimates that emerging economies in the region will need toinvest as much as 26 trillion USD through 2030 to build transportnetworks, boost power supply and upgrade water and sanitation facilities.Vietnam, among the fastest-growing nations in the world, is boostinginfrastructure to lure more foreign investors as it positions itself as Asia'snext Tiger Economy.
Vietnam needs about 480 billion USD through 2020 to construct 11 powerplants with total capacity of 13,200 megawatts and about 1,380 kilometres ofhighways as well as carry out other environment, health and education projects.-VNA
