Vietnamese agencies will not use official development assistance (ODA) for regular expenses, according to a prime minister-approved project on drawing, managing, and using ODA and soft loans provided by foreign lenders for the 2018-2020 period and vision 2021-2025. 
Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh at a meeting on reviewing ODA. Photo: Nhan Dan
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The government will prioritize ODA for programs and projects in health, education, vocational training, climate resilience, environment protection, and inter-regional infrastructure.
Notably, the government will only use ODA for sectors that domestic public investment is unable to afford or projects that require state control.
For non-repayable funds, the government will use for poverty reduction, institutional and manpower development, hi-tech transfer, climate resilience, and projects under the public-private partnership (PPP).
Vietnam is no longer eligible to receive zero or very low interest credit by the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) since July 1, 2017 and the ADB’s Asian Development Fund (ADF) for lower-income developing member countries (DMCs) from January 2019.
Vietnam has received ODA for 25 years with a total amount of more than US$80 billion, including US$7 billion worth of non-refundable loans, more than US$70 billion worth of credits with interest rates below 2%, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said in July.
The soft loans have enabled Vietnam to eliminate hunger, raise social welfare, improve living conditions, and obtain high socio-economic growth rates for the past decades. But part of the loans remained ineffective due to mismanagement, according to local experts.
