The French Development Agency (AFD) has agreed to a 1-million-EURO (US$ 1,457,000) fund for technical assistance to the Hanoi University Medical hospital (CHU) and another 1.5 million EURO to help develop a future ongoing fund for study and preparatory work for the next generation of AFD financing in Vietnam.
Mr. Dov Zerah, General Director of the French Development Agency, Mr. Vo Hong Phuc, Minister of Planning and Investment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Mr. Jean-François Girault, Ambassador of France in Vietnam, signed the agreement on May 5.
The CHU project is in line with French cooperation in Vietnam that has been going on for a long time in the medical sector. The AFD has forecast a 1 million EURO grant that aims to finance technical assistance to the medical university in Hanoi and the development of CHU.
On the technical expertise side, this project meets the demand of Vietnamese authorities wanting to upgrade CHU and construct a teaching hospital. The project has high ambitions of upgrading CHU and increasing the quality of care, medical training system as well as research capabilities. The technical assistance fund will be spread out over a period of three years.
The second fund to build an ongoing AFD Fund (FERC 2nd Tranch) will sponsor future projects in Vietnam, as well as monitor other projects for technical assistance. This new FERC fund will meet many needs in the financial sector and in the area of sustainable economic growth.
Other areas that it will cover are new municipal investment funds, environmental credit lines for small and medium enterprises, infrastructure sector (transportation, water and sewage), projects on climate change, sustainable development and development of village plantations (tea and rubber)
AFD development assistance (ODA) in Vietnam will amount to about 1,050 billions EUROs.
