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World Bank hails Vietnam’s development results
The World Bank has announced a report by its Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), which highlighted recent development results in Vietnam as impressive.
As one of the fastest growing economies in the world - with average annual GDP growth of 7.2 percent during the decade prior to the fiscal year 08-09 economic slowdown - Vietnam has lifted some 35 million people out of poverty, it said on April 14.
The country’s poverty rate fell from 58 percent in 1993 to 14 percent in 2008, it added.
Water supply and sanitation facilities have expanded. Electricity reaches 95 percent of the population and 90 percent of the population is connected by all-weather roads. Health services and living conditions of people in remote mountainous areas have been improved, according to the WB.
The results from the bank’s Vietnam development support programme have been outstanding, based on the IEG evaluations of 34 completed projects. Vietnam has maintained its record of 100 percent of projects having been rated satisfactory, it emphasised.
The WB programme was to improve the business environment and governance, and strengthen social inclusion and natural resource and environmental management in Vietnam .
At the same time the WB stressed the sustainability of Vietnam’s growth will also be challenging, given increasing pressures on the country’s natural resource base, the exposure of large segments of the population to natural disaster risks, and the expected (Adverse) impacts of climate change.
Institutional reforms are necessary to ensure the country’s large development agenda meets its objectives of inclusive and sustainable growth, the WB said.
The next few years will be critical for Vietnam in completing the transition to a market economy and creating the foundations of a middle income country, it forecast.
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