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Donors pledge nearly $8 billion for Vietnam
Development partners pledged US$7.905 billion in Official Development Assistance (ODA) for Vietnam in 2011 at the end of their two-day meeting with the Vietnamese Government in Hanoi Wednesday.
The amount included $3.3 billion from bilateral partners (With $1.76 billion from Japan ) and the remaining $4.6 billion from multilateral partners.
Addressing the closing session of the meeting, known as the Consultative Group Meeting for Vietnam (CG), Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc said this amount will mainly be used for infrastructural facilities, transport projects, and programmes to deal with climate change.
“Though the ODA amount committed for 2011 is lower than the 2010 level, the figure of 7.9 billion USD is still impressive,” Minister Phuc said.
At the CG meeting held in December 2009, Vietnam got the committed ODA amount of 8 billion USD, however 1 billion USD was reserved to support Vietnam in weathering the financial and economic crisis.
As Vietnam enters Middle Income Country status, it cannot be granted the preferential lending treatments enjoyed before, Minister Phuc emphasised, noting that ODA will have shorter lending terms but higher interest rates.
Because of that, Vietnam will prioritise ODA for projects that will serve economic development and are capable of refunding the loans they get, according to Minister Phuc.
The $7.9 billion ODA amount committed at this year’s CG meeting brings the total ODA sum pledged for Vietnam since 1998 to over $64 billion.
The mid-term CG meeting in 2011 will take place in the central province of Ha Tinh in June.
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