Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) receives OFID Director General Abdulhamid Alkhalifa in Hanoi on August 27 (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc received Director General of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) Abdulhamid Alkhalifa in Hanoi on August 27, saying that OFID-funded projects have helped to improve Vietnamese people’s lives.
PM Phuc highlighted the sound relationship between the OFID and Vietnam over the last four decades with 20 projects and programmes in transport, irrigation, poverty reduction, health care, education and urban development in many Vietnamese localities, which have helped to improve considerably living conditions of local residents, especially in rural areas.
Alkhalifa’s ongoing working visit and the signing of a financing agreement for a transport infrastructure improvement project in Da Nang city are another milestone for a new period of cooperation between the Vietnamese Government and the OFID, he said.
The OFID Director General said it’s now the right time for the two sides to lift their cooperation to a new level, adding that the OFID is ready to support Vietnam’s development and be a good partner of the country.
At the meeting, PM Phuc said although Vietnam has become a middle-income country, there remain many disadvantaged areas and they are in need of investment resources, especially for infrastructure improvement.
Therefore, the Vietnamese Government hopes the OFID will continue providing technical assistance, particularly in the fields it has funding experience in, through non-refundable aid and help the country access the fund’s loans with more preferential interest rates, thereby creating conditions for residents in those areas to develop, he noted.
The PM affirmed that Vietnam will coordinate with the OFID to build projects and programmes that meet both the fund’s priorities and the country’s socio-economic development orientations.
Alkhalifa highly valued the PM’s proposals, saying that they will help the OFID orient its operations in Vietnam in the time ahead.
He said the OFID is funding 14 projects with non-refundable aid in Vietnam, and it is seriously realising its commitments in these projects.
The OFID Director General also expressed his hope that the Vietnamese Government, ministries and sectors will back the fund’s efforts to cooperate with and assist the country’s private sector and small- and medium-sized enterprises.-VNA
VNA
