NA Standing Committee members said future official development assistance loans are necessary for Vietnam given its huge demand for investment in development (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Members of the NationalAssembly Standing Committee have agreed that future official development assistance(ODA) loans are necessary for Vietnam to meet its development potential,but they emphasised the need to spend these loans more effectively.
On the second day of the NA Standing Committee’smeeting on August 9, full-time lawmakers discussed the special monitoringreport on the implementation of state policies and laws on the management andspending of ODA loans from 2011-2016.
According to the monitoring report, 319agreements were signed in the period 2011-2016 with a total value of 33.64billion USD, 59 percent higher than in the 2006-2010 period.
Members of the NA Standing Committee said thatwhile Vietnam’s policies have been becoming more effective for themanagement and spending of ODA loans, shortcomings still exist.
Some members raised the question of whether ODAloans had been spent wastefully or ineffectively and whether the spending ofODA loans had met practical needs.
[Video: Vietnam among world’s top recipients of ODA, soft loans]
Phan Thanh Binh, Chairman of the NACommittee for Culture, Education, Youth and Children,suggested stronger supervision from the National Assembly and local People’sCouncils.
NA committees should seriously and strictlysupervise ODA projects within their responsibilities, and the Government needsto clearly identify individuals or agencies in charge of ODA projectsupervision, Binh said.
Other members of the committee agreed that inthe coming time the government would have to strengthen inspections andsupervision of ODA projects. They also said that for non-refundable ODA,priorities should be given to sustainable poverty reduction projects includingeducation, institutional development, knowledge and technology transfer.
On the other hand, the NA Standing Committeesaid ODA loans should be allocated to large-scale projects, such as those ininfrastructure development and regional social-economical development.
NA Vice Chairman Phung Quoc Hien said that ODAloans should never be borrowed using the government’s current spending/expenditures.
ODA loans and foreign preferential loans shouldbe calculated to avoid dependence on foreign investors, he added.
The same day, the committee discussed the planfor mid-term public investment of the period 2016-2020 and the non-refundableassistance from Ireland for the Programme 135, which aims to provideassistance for socio-economic development in communes with special difficulties.-VNA
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