The Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda said Wednesday [February 20] in Hanoi that the bank will loan US$1.3 billion-US$1.8 billion to help Vietnam improve infrastructure, human resource and boost the administrative and financial reforms in the couple years to come.
ADB will provide the fund to Vietnam via feasibility studies for the projects with the focus on implementation of sub-projects in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Economic Cooperation Program, noted Kuroda who is on his three-day working visit to Vietnam from February 19.
Vietnam is playing a vital role in turning GMS’s transportation corridor into the economic corridor in the region in a bid to sharpen the compositeness, the ADP president told Vietnam News Agency.
Thanks to co-concerted efforts of regional countries, Vietnam’s exports to Cambodia, China, Laos, Miramar and Thailand soared 24 per cent a year on average and the export market share of the country widened to 8.8 per cent from 6.5 per cent between 1992 and 2006, Vietnam News Agency cited Mr. Kuroda as saying.
During the period, Vietnam’s trade value over its GDP doubled to 135 per cent from 50 per cent, representing greater openness of the economy to the outside world, he said.
Last year, ADB financed US$9.9 billion for 34 projects in the GMS countries, including 9 in Vietnam valued at US$2.2 billion.
The projects are upgrading Ho Chi Minh City-Phnom Penh Highway, the West-East transportation corridor, tourism development projects in Laos and Cambodia, disease control along GMS countries’ boundary, highway linking Hanoi and Lao Cai in the northern Vietnam.
At the CG meeting late December, ADB pledged US$1.35 billion for Vietnam this year, which will include loans and technical assistances under the action program. (VNA, Vietnam Economic Times)
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