Prime Minister appreciates WB’s assistance for Vietnam

In spite of several positive achievements, the Government has yet to feel satisfied and is fully aware of difficulties and challenges that need to be addressed in the time ahead, he stated.

The Government leader stressed the resolve to control public debt within acceptable limit at below 65 percent as regulated to ensure its national financial safety and gradually reduce the rate after 2017. At the same time, the Government will restructure public debt, reduce overspending, cut down regular expenditure, meet the date of payments and effectively use loans.

New loans will be spent on building necessary socio-economic infrastructure facilities while great efforts will be made to minimize wastefulness and corruption, he added.

The PM also informed his guest that the Vietnamese Government is taking drastic measures to speed up the equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) as well as the restructuring of poorly-performing commercial banks.

The government is also set to go on with reducing bad debt, he said, adding that the goal to bring bad debt to below 3 percent in September is quite feasible.

Another focus of the Government is to restructure the agricultural sector, while continuing administrative procedure reform, improving the business climate and increasing the economy’s competitiveness, he added.

He expressed his hope that Vietnam will gain access to loans of the WB’s International Development Association (IDA), and receive the bank’s help in making the Vietnam Report 2035.

Victoria Kwakwa, in turn, noted that Vietnam continued to record good progress in economic development, with stable macro economy and exchange rates.

She spoke highly of Vietnam’s efforts and policies to tighten fiscal spending, control public debt, address bad debt, renovate SOEs and restructure the banking and agricultural sectors.

The WB is willing to provide official development assistance (ODA) and IDA loans for Vietnam, as well as supporting and cooperating with the country in restructuring the agricultural sector, she stated.

She also affirmed her priority to cooperate with Vietnam’s ministries and sectors to prepare for the signing and implementation of credit agreements during the 17th term of the IDA, with around 1.5 billion USD already signed and another 2 billion USD to be signed in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years.

The bank is also making effort to complete and announce the Vietnam Report 2035 in the time ahead, she added./.