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ADB provides USD 24.8 million loan for poverty reduction in Vietnam
Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Van Binh and Mr. Tomoyuki Kimura, Country Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Vietnam, signed the financing agreement of a USD 24.8 million loan for the implementation of the poverty reduction program. The signing ceremony was held at the SBV head office in Hanoi on January 17.
Accordingly, the ADB program loan provides parallel financing to the Poverty Reduction Support Credit framework supported by a number of development partners. The Poverty Reduction Support Credits helps the Government of Vietnam carry out a wide range of policy reforms in the areas of business development, social inclusion, natural resource management, and governance to ensure successful implementation of the Ten-Year Socio-economic Development Strategy 2011-2020, and the Socio-economic Development Plan 2011-2015.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Governor Nguyen Van Binh highlighted that in addition to the other programs and projects funded by ADB, Poverty Reduction Program V has a mission of creating the foundation for sustainable and comprehensive growth by the means of specific actions and policies in many areas in consistence with the implementation capacity of Vietnam. He acknowledged and highly appreciated the active participation of the co-sponsors in the process to develop the financial policy dialogue program of Vietnam as well as their active financing for programs and projects. At the same time, the SBV Governor expressed his belief that in 2012, with the internal resources and determination of the Government and people of Vietnam as well as the invaluable assistance of the international community, Vietnam would achieve the set targets, make progress in the reform process and promote the achievements already obtained in poverty reduction.
Mr. Tomoyuki Kimura said that poverty reduction cannot be sustained without inclusive economic growth and that further efforts should be made to accelerate reforms to strengthen institutional and human capacity, governance and policies to address the development challenges and to promote economic growth. He recalled that Vietnam’s poverty rate declined significantly from 15.5% in 2006 to 9.5% in 2010 as a result of the country’s rapid economic growth and improved social protection programs. However, he added, selected groups remain vulnerable to poverty while the poverty incidence among ethnic minority groups remained very high at more than 50% in 2009. Mr. Tomoyuki Kimura suggested that the root causes of macro-economic stability only be addressed by deepening the financial sector, imposing market discipline on state-owned enterprises and improving the efficiency of public investments. The Government and people of Vietnam expect ADB to remain a reliable partner in the reform process for pursuit of economic growth and poverty reduction, therefore, ADB is well positioned to meet these expectations, he confirmed.
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