Deputy PM Tran Luu Quang addresses the meeting of the national steering committee on ODA and concessional loans in Hanoi on March 27. (Photo: VNA) He made the remarks while chairing a Hanoi meeting of the national steering committee on the capital.
The event also saw the presence ofrepresentatives of the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), theJapan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Export - Import Bank of Korea(KEXIM), the French Development Agency (AFD), and the KfW Development Bank of Germany.
Quang appreciated the development partners’ capital for Vietnam, describing this as critical to the country’s socio-economic and infrastructure development.
However, he also pointed out certainlegal obstacles, policy and procedural differences between Vietnam and partners,and problems in disbursement and payment procedures.
Asking the two sides to coordinateclosely to harmonise procedures to shorten the time needed for projectpreparation and implementation, he also suggested the partners adopt more flexibleand reasonable management models and prioritise funding for the country’sefforts to cope with specific circumstances like climate change and naturaldisasters.
The Deputy PM also orderedministries, sectors, and localities of Vietnam to work closely with the partnersto devise solutions to difficulties facing each project.
At the meeting, the developmentpartners pledged to continue providing ODA for Vietnam and expressed their readiness to assist the Government in issuing regulations on ODA capital managementand use.
They underlined the need to harmonisetheir regulations and legal rules of Vietnam when it comes to ODA projects toshorten project preparation time.
The partners also recommended Vietnamcontinue streamlining administrative procedures and accelerating opinion provisionduring project preparation and implementation.
The Ministry of Planning andInvestment (MPI) reported that the ODA capital and concessional loans Vietnamsigned for the 2021 - 2023 period was about 3.35 billion USD. Ministries,sectors, and localities implemented 656 projects, including 47 investment projects,215 technical assistance ones and non-project grants.
In2023, the National Assembly approved 29 trillion VND (1.75 billion USD) in publicinvestment funded by foreign capital sources for allocation. About 50.9% of thesum was disbursed. The public investment funding from foreign sources for 2024is 20 trillion VND, 1.42% of which had disbursed as of February 29, statisticsshow./.
VNA
