State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc (R) and WB Regional Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific Victoria Kwakwa (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc hosted a reception in Hanoi on June 29 for World Bank (WB) Regional Vice
President for East Asia and the Pacific Victoria Kwakwa who is on a working trip to Vietnam.
Hailing Kwakwa for her
dedication to promoting effective cooperation programmes between WB and
Vietnam, Phuc affirmed that the Vietnamese State and people always highly value
her efforts and contributions in the field.
The WB has assisted Vietnam not only in poverty reduction but also in the building of mechanisms and strategic
infrastructure framework over the past years, thus helping Vietnam make breakthrough
strides, which have been welcomed by the WB and international organisations, he
said.
Phuc thanked the WB for supporting Vietnam’s bid to delay the payment of International
Development Association’s loans in order to have more resources for the fight against
COVID-19 and for economic development. He also lauded the WB’s initiatives to
assist countries in the COVID-19 fight, including Vietnam.
Kwakwa, for her part, congratulated Vietnam on curbing the COVID-19 spread. At
the same time, the country also harmoniously combined fiscal and monetary policies
to generate strong economic growth, becoming one of a few nations with positive
growth in the region and achievements in export.
Underlining the
importance of vaccinations, she also committed all possible support to Vietnam
to buy vaccines and offer health care to its people.
About Vietnam’s socio-economic development orientations, Kwakwa said Vietnam
has devised a relatively complete development policy framework, especially regarding
the development of key economic zones, digital transformation, inclusive
development, climate change response and green growth, which are strategic
infrastructure for Vietnam to become an upper middle-income country by 2045.
The guest also spoke highly of Vietnam’s efforts to realise the climate change
response strategy in the Mekong Delta and reduce greenhouse carbon emissions.
She suggested Vietnam pay more attention to reducing coal-fired power development and
switching to cleaner and greener energy production.
The host wished that the WB would continue assisting Vietnam in fulfilling
development goals till 2035 and 2045, as well as addressing post-pandemic poverty
relapse in countries, including Vietnam.
Phuc discussed with the WB official measures to fix shortcomings in building projects and
disbursing official development assistance (ODA) in Vietnam, and proposed Kwakwa seek more ODA to Vietnam in the time to come./.
VNA