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New WB - financed project for Vietnam
A ceremony was held at the head office of the State Bank of Vietnam in Hanoi on December 9 to sign the Financing Agreement and the related legal documents for the WB-financed Agriculture Competitiveness Project for Vietnam. The signatories were SBV Governor Nguyen Van Giau and Mr. Martin Rama, Acting Country Director of the World Bank (WB) in Vietnam.
The total cost of this Project is US $75 million, of which US$59.8 million is the loan from the WB and US $15.2 million provided by the Vietnamese Government as the counterpart fund (including contribution capital of the participating enterprises and farmer organizations). The SBV is the project management agency and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is assigned to be the Project Management Unit.
The Project aims at strengthening the competitiveness of farmers in 8 Central and Central Highland provinces by linking production with businesses. The main objective of this project is to help farmers to improve their access to the market through the transfer and application of new production technology, restructuring farmers’cooperatives, linking farmers with enterprises, and providing part of essential production infrastructure.
The Project is of special importance for Vietnam at this juncture in face of the impact of the global financial crisis and especially when Vietnam has to open its retail market under the WTO commitments in January 2009.
SBV Governor Nguyen Van Giau delivered a speech at the signing ceremony of the Financing Agreement of the WB-financed Agriculture Competitiveness Project for Vietnam on December 5. Following is the full text of his speech :
"Your exellency Mr Martin Rama, WB Acting Country Director in Viet Nam.
Leaders of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and representatives of ministries and sectors in Viet Nam.
Distinguished Delegates,
Today It is my great honour on behalf of Socialist republic of Viet Nam together with Mr Martin Rama - WB Acting Country Director in Viet Nam to sign in the Financing Agreement and related documents for the USD 59.8 million project on “Agriculture Competitiveness”. VietNam’s Government will contribute this project with 2.3 million USD of counterpart fund, in which 12.9 million USD will be mobilized from the enterprises and farmers’ organizations.
Distinguished Delegates,
Agriculture and Rural Development is one of the leading priorities in the socio-economic development and poverty reduction strategy of VietNam’s Government. We always appeal and respect the investment funds for the agriculture and rural development. Therefore, we highly appreciate the support of World Bank in borrowing preference capitals for the implementation of “Agriculture Competitiveness” Project to develop the agriculture and rural sector in 8 Central and Central Highland provinces.
This project will strengthen the competitiveness of smallholder farmers in the Project Provinces, through the production linkage with businesses. The main objective of this project is to improve the farmers’ market accessment capacity, through the transfer and application of new production technology, fostering of farmers’ organizations and their linkages to agri-businesses, and provision of critical production infrastructure.
This project will make contribution to enhance the agriculture technology and critical infrastructure in rural areas. Moreover, the new approach of this project will also create agriculture production union at the project provinces in order to support poor farmers to expand their agricultural products’ consumption market.
With great effort of the project administration, agencies of Viet Nam government and World Bank, I hope that the objectives of this project will be successfully implemented in Viet Nam, making contributions to support the socio-economic development and poverty reduction in the Central and Central highland areas particularly and in Viet Nam generally.
Distinguished Guests,
We recognize the WB’s goodwill to Viet Nam as well as to appreciate the effective co-operative efforts of the WB officers. It is my great honour on behalf of Viet Nam government to express the respect and sincere thank to the effective contributions and assistance of WB to Viet Nam in the past years.
Last but not least, we wish the cooperative relation between Viet Nam and WB be further consolidated and developed.
Thank you very much!"
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