Thai Nguyen asked to utilise ODA for development

Thai Nguyen should take full advantage of Official Development Assistance (ODA) to serve the development purposes in the context of limited State budget and Vietnam's graduation from the International Development Association (IDA) this year.

Deputy PM Pham Binh Minh speaks at the meeting (photo: VGP)
Deputy PM Pham Binh Minh speaks at the meeting (photo: VGP)

Politburo member and Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh made the remarks while working with Thai Nguyen's provincial Party Committee on September 5.

He noted that Thai Nguyen is among the localities that have a lot of ODA projects (29 projects) including the Hanoi-Thai Nguyen Highway project, an important project contributing to the local socio-economic development.

He told the provincial authorities to hasten the disbursement for ODA projects in order to avoid wastefulness, adding that the wastefulness of ODA sources represents irresponsibility for the country as the Government must pay interest rates on capital sourced through ODA.

As ODA sources and preferential loans have become scarcer, in addition to higher interest rates of foreign loans, the Deputy PM told Thai Nguyen not to use the loans for land clearance.

Thai Nguyen province should pay attention to land clearance as sluggishness will result in longer borrowing periods and higher interest rates.

Deputy PM Minh also gave instructions on accelerating the key ODA projects in the province, including the infrastructure construction of Nui Coc Lake tourism site, the Thai Nguyen urban upgrading project and the upgrading of Song Cong city, among others.

The local report showed that Thai Nguyen posted an economic growth rate of 14.1% in the first eight months of 2017, surpassing the set target by 2.1%.

The province also reported total export revenue of US$15.43 billion in the eight months, up 26.7% over the same period last year and a total import revenue of US$9.3 billion, up 20% over the same period last year.