Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception in Hanoi on July 18 afternoon for World Bank (WB) Managing Director of Operations Axel van Trotsenburg, during which he affirmed Vietnam always considers WB a good friend and an important development partner.
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| Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) receives WB Managing Director of Operations Axel van Trotsenburg__Photo: VNA |
He thanked the bank for supporting resources, providing macro-policy advice, making positive contributions to Vietnam's socio-economic development as well as the realization of the Millennium Development Goals, and e-Government building.
The Government leader also thanked the WB for supporting Vietnam to postpone the quick repayment of International Development Association (IDA) loans for one more year from July 2020 to July 2021 (worth nearly USD 400 million) to help the Government have more resources, and accompanying the country in difficult times of COVID-19 prevention, recovery and socio-economic development.
He mentioned to the recent conference on planning and investment promotion in the Mekong Delta, during which six development banks pledged to finance about USD 2.2 billion for the region, of which USD 450 million is expected to come from the WB.
For its part, Vietnam has committed to contributing nearly USD 16 million during 2021-2023 in the bank’s largest capital increase in history as it is mobilizing USD 13 billion to supplement its operation capital, thus demonstrating the country’s great responsibility, obligation and effort in the context of a lot of difficulties and challenges.
He appreciated the WB’s assistance for Vietnam to complete the building of Vietnam Report 2035, and asked the bank to help build Vietnam Report 2045 and continue supporting the country in developing strategic infrastructure, promoting sustainable development and green growth, reducing gas emissions and responding to climate change.
Regarding Vietnam’s commitments at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Chinh affirmed that Vietnam is responsibly and actively joining hands with the international community in climate change response with an approach to ensuring fairness and justice, identifying it as one of the urgent and important tasks and also an opportunity to transform the development model and build an energy transition industry. He asked the WB to continue supporting Vietnam in climate change adaptation.
Axel appreciated and expressed his impression with the solutions taken by the Vietnamese Government to simultaneously realizing the goals that are difficult to achieve in the past and present contexts.
Over the past years, Vietnam has also achieved a high growth rate and been an image showing the general development of the entire Asia-Pacific region. The World Bank has learned many lessons from Vietnam's practice, and Vietnam can share its development and pandemic prevention experience with many other countries while continuing to contribute to solving many global issues such as food security, he stated.
He emphasized that he will continue to accompany the Vietnamese Government in the upcoming development journey not only in the financial sector, but also in solving strategic issues such as improving the capacity of the health system, responding to diseases and adapting to climate change.
The World Bank is ready to send a team of global experts to support the Vietnamese Government in developing the Report 2045, thus contributing to the goal of building Vietnam into a developed and high-income country by 2045, he added.-(VNA/VLLF)
