The Asian Development Bank will increase its soft loans to Vietnam in the coming time, with a total of up to US$2 billion this year, visiting ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda was quoted as saying Monday in Hanoi.
Mr. Haruhiko was speaking with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during his visit to Vietnam on February 28 – March 2 2011, as part of the final preparations for the annual meeting of ADB’s Board of Governors in May in the capital.
The 44th annual meeting is scheduled from May 3-6.
The Vietnamese government’s news website quoted the ADB President as saying to the PM that in recent years, his bank’s soft loans for Vietnam averaged US$1.5 billion annually. He added part of the future loans would be for education, training and human resource development.
ADB announced Feb 22 that it had approved a US$1 billion financial support facility that will help improve clean water access for three million families in Vietnam, including half a million poor households who will receive their own piped water connection for the first time.
The bank said Feb 1 that it and the Nordic Development Fund are assisting the country to draw up and implement detailed climate change action plans for key cities and government departments. A technical assistance grant of US$2.5 million from the Nordic Development Fund, administered by ADB, will be used to help Ho Chi Minh and Da Nang cities, the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Industry and Trade, and Thanh Hoa Province plan and implement effective climate change response measures. The assistance will support the Vietnamese Government’s National Target Program for building a more climate-resilient economy producing less greenhouse gas.
May’s ADB annual meeting is the first time the event is hosted by Vietnam.
The bank describes the event as an opportunity for the nation to showcase its rapid socioeconomic development with the support of development partners including ADB, and its recent progression to Middle Income Country status.
About 3,000 participants, including heads of state, finance ministers, central bank governors and representatives from the private sector, academia, media and civil society are expected to attend the meeting, ADB said.
The participants will discuss pressing issues facing the region including policy challenges for food security, middle income countries, changing growth trends and capital flows to Asia, infrastructure development, environmentally sustainable development, and climate change, according to ADB.
At one of the seminars, governors will examine what the region must do over the next 40 years to sustain the momentum of its remarkable growth in recent decades, the bank added.
