World Bank approves strategy for Vietnam

The World Bank Group’s Board of Executive Directors has discussed the Viet Nam Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) for the 2012-16 period and approved the first three operations under the new CPS, delivering commitment to support its transition to a sucessful middle income country.

Victoria Kwakwa, Country Director for the World Bank in Viet Nam, said that the World Bank Group’s first CPS with Viet Nam since it became a lower middle-income country in 2009 would combine continuity from the previous CPS programme with the introduction of some gradual strategic shifts aimed at sharpening strategic focus within the programme, enhancing operational efficiency, and delivering development results faster.

Besides outlining Viet Nam’s key development achievements, the CPS also highlighted remaining challenges, including maintaining high levels of growth with macroeconomic stability, strengthening economic competitiveness, managing the environment and natural resources and tackling persistent poverty in remote communities.

The CPS was expected to help Viet Nam address these challenges and implement the Government’s Socio-economic Development Strategy during the next 10 years.

It would support investment, programmes and advisory services organised into a strategic framework of three key pillars and three cross-cutting themes.

The pillars are to increase the country’s competitiveness, sustainability of its development and access to social and economic opportunities. The cross-cutting themes are to strengthen governance, promote gender equality and improve resilience in the face of external economic shocks, natural hazards and the impacts of climate change.

The World Bank has provided nearly US$14 billion in credit, loans and grants to help Viet Nam sustain growth and fight poverty since 1993.

The International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s concessional arm, will allocate about $4.2 billion to support Viet Nam during the new CPS period.

On December 15, the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors approved three operations worth total $457 million in IDA credits to help Viet Nam implement three development projects in poverty reduction, urban infrastructure services and rural transport.

VNS

Tags: Vietnam banking industry, Vietnam finance, Vietnam financial

Posted by VBN on Dec 21 2011. Filed under Banking-Finance, Economy News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry