ADB provides US$176 million for Vietnam’s socio-economic development

PANO – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Vietnamese Government on January 17 ^th signed four loan agreements valued at $176 million to help the Vietnamese Government on capacity building to strengthen public-private partnerships (PPP) and infrastructure investments, enhance competitiveness of towns along Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) economic corridors, improve food safety, as well as develop national capacity to mitigate HIV risks.

With the first loan agreement, ADB provides US$20 million from its Asian Development Fund (ADF) to fund the Public Private Partnership Support Project. The project will use the fund to establish a Project Development Facility (PDF) to help bring efficient PPP projects to the market. Ministries and government agencies will use the PDF to fund PPP project preparation activities, including pre-feasibility studies, full feasibility studies and the engaging of transaction advisors to structure deals to bring to the private sector for bidding.

The signing ceremony. Photo: baohaiquan.vn

The second loan of US$130 million will help transform the GMS corridor towns of Dong Ha, Lao Bao and Moc Bai into economic hubs by improving urban-environmental infrastructure and strengthening institutional capacities of provincial and local authorities. The GMS Corridor Towns Development Project will finance 10 sub-projects in the three towns.

To help Vietnam improve food safety, ADB provides $11 million in ADF loans to finance the Trade Facilitation, "Improved Sanitary and Phytosanitary Handling in GMS Trade Project". The project will support the country to establish, strengthen and implement surveillance and inspection programs for food safety, including safe food handling in the tourism industry, and regional cooperation and harmonization of sanitary and phytosantary management in food trade in the GMS.

The final loan of US$ 15 million from ADF is to finance GMS Capacity Building for HIV/AIDS Prevention Project to address current gaps in effectively reaching high-risk and vulnerable populations in border areas along shared economic corridors with other GMS countries. The project helps the Government develop its national and regional capacity to mitigate HIV risks and vulnerability, primarily in 15 border provinces in Vietnam.

Addressing the ceremony, Tomoyuki Kimura, the ADB Country Director for Vietnam said that the provision of adequate physical infrastructure is a necessary condition to ensure the country's economic growth and people's access to services and opportunities. The challenge then is how to mobilize the financing needed to develop infrastructure, and clearly this will largely rely on encouraging more private sector investment, such as well placed public financing coupled with support to overcome policy, institutional, information and risk barriers to investment."

Chung Anh