Today the Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam, Nguyen Van Giau and the
President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Haruhiko Kuroda, signed a US$1.38
billion financial assistance deal set to help increase access to clean water,
conserve threatened forests and ease urban gridlock throughout Viet Nam.

The total project cost
will amount to approximately $4.5 billion.

“The ADB’s assistance
will help ensure access to clean water, the development of cities and the
preservation of biologically diverse forests for future generations,” said ADB
President Kuroda.

According to the ADB,
in many of Viet Nam’s largest cities, up to 40 per cent of treated water is lost
before it reaches the end user. Moreover, four in every ten families have no
connection to a central water supply system at all. The $1 billion financial
support mechanism from the ADB will help improve clean water access for 3
million families in Viet Nam’s cities, including half a million poor households
who will receive their own piped water connection for the first time. The ADB’s
assistance forms part of a $2.8 billion investment programme

A $30 million loan
from the ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund will further enhance
cross-border co-operation in protecting a continuous stretch of biologically
divers forest in Viet Nam’s central region, which spans the highlands of Quang
Tri, Thua Thien-Hue city and Quang Nam provinces.

A $350 million loan,
part of an overall $636 million ADB package will support a $1.6 billion project
to construct a modern expressway to the south of congested HCM City. The
57-kilometre expressway between Ben Luc and Long Thanh will reduce traffic
congestion in the heart of HCM City by allowing vehicles travelling from east to
west to bypass the city centre. When the expressway opens in 2017, it will
reduce east-west travel time by 80 per cent and cut the number of traffic
accidents by 10 per cent.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News