Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception inHanoi on July 18 afternoon for World Bank (WB) Managing Director of Operations Axelvan Trotsenburg, during which he affirmed Vietnam always considers WB a goodfriend and an important development partner.

He thanked the bank for supporting resources, providingmacro-policy advice, making positive contributions to Vietnam's socio-economicdevelopment as well as the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals, ande-Government building.

The Government leader also thanked the WB for supportingVietnam to postpone the quick repayment of International DevelopmentAssociation (IDA) loans for one more year from July 2020 to July 2021 (worthnearly 400 million USD) to help the Government have more resources, andaccompanying the country in difficult times of COVID-19 prevention, recoveryand socio-economic development.

He mentioned to the recent conference on planning and investmentpromotion in the Mekong Delta, during which six development banks pledged tofinance about 2.2 billion USD for the region, of which 450 million USD is expected to come from the WB.

For its part, Vietnam has committed to contributing nearly16 million USD during 2021-2023 in the bank’s largest capital increase inhistory as it is mobilising 13 billion USD to supplement its operation capital,thus demonstrating the country’s great responsibility, obligation and effort in thecontext of a lot of difficulties and challenges.

He appreciated the WB’s assistance for Vietnam to completethe building of Vietnam Report 2035, and asked the bank to help build VietnamReport 2045 and continue supporting the country in developing strategicinfrastructure, promoting sustainable development and green growth, reducinggas emissions and responding to climate change.

Regarding Vietnam’s commitments at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), Chinh affirmed that Vietnamis responsibly and actively joining hands with the international community inclimate change response with an approach to ensuring fairness and justice,identifying it as one of the urgent and important tasks and also an opportunityto transform the development model and build an energy transition industry. Heasked the WB to continue supporting Vietnam in climate change adaptation.

Axel appreciated and expressed his impression with thesolutions taken by the Vietnamese Government to simultaneously realisingthe goals that are difficult to achieve in the past and present contexts.

Over the past years, Vietnam has also achieved a high growthrate and been an image showing the general development of the entireAsia-Pacific region. The World Bank has learned many lessons from Vietnam'spractice, and Vietnam can share its development and pandemic prevention experiencewith many other countries while continuing to contribute to solving many globalissues such as food security, he stated.

He emphasised that he will continue to accompany the VietnameseGovernment in the upcoming development journey not only in the financialsector, but also in solving strategic issues such as improving the capacity ofthe health system, responding to diseases and adapting to climate change.

The World Bank is ready to send a team of global experts tosupport the Vietnamese Government in developing the Report 2045, thus contributingto the goal of building Vietnam into a developed and high-income country by2045, he added./.