Despite its economic achievements, Vietnam is still poor and hopes to receive more international support, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) meeting in Hanoi Thursday.

 

At the opening session of the bank’s 44th annual meeting, Dung also committed that Vietnam will use any international funds “for the right purposes,” and “with the highest effectiveness,” VnExpress reported.

 

Over the past ten years the country has achieved the annual growth rate of 7.26 percent, while its poverty rate decreased from 58 percent in 1993 to less than ten percent in 2010, according to Dung.

 

The local economy will recover from the recent crisis within the next five years with the target growth rate of seven percent per year. Meanwhile, the poverty rate will go up two percent every year, and income in the countryside will double from last year, the news source reported.

 

Meanwhile, ADB Chairman Haruhiko Kuroda congratulated Vietnam on its entry into the middle-income categories, adding that Vietnam and many other Asian countries are strengthening their positions in the global economy.

 

As of March ADB has pledged nearly US$10 billion to more than 100 projects in Vietnam, ranging from infrastructure development to education.

 

Also at the meeting, Kuroda stressed that Asian countries will be influenced by Japan’s disasters on March 11 in the short term.

 

Developing countries will enjoy lower growth rates this year and next year – 7.8 and 7.7 percent respectively, while inflation will increase, according to Kuroda.

 

Not to mention that hundreds of millions of people in the region are categorized as the world’s poorest, he said, suggesting policymakers consider measures to curb inflation.