Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc received Madam Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA) of World Bank (WB) at the Government headquarters on March 23, 2017.
The Prime Minister congratulated the guest on being appointed as the CEO of the IBRD and IDA, and wished her success in the new position.
He expressed his delight at the growing cooperation between Viet Nam and the WB, while speaking highly of the institution’s role in facilitating Viet Nam’s socio-economic development, particularly in poverty reduction.
Prime Minister stated that Viet Nam has finalized the building of strategic directions for socio-economic development, with the top goals of stabilizing the macro-economy, promoting the implementation of strategic breakthroughs, restructuring the economy associated with shifting the growth model, ensuring social security, proactively combating climate change and striving for an average growth of 6.5-7% in 2016-2020. However, Vietnam still copes with many challenges in the progress of integration, economic growth and climate change, sea level rise, therefore it needs the support of sponsor community in general and WB in particular to successfully achieve the set targets.
PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc asked the World Bank to support Viet Nam in stabilizing macro-economy and taking economic restructuring measures in the restructuring of public investment, State-owned enterprises and the banking system.
He appreciated the WB for basically finalizing the draft Viet Nam-WB Country Partnership Framework (CPF) in 2017-2022, adding that Vietnamese agencies would continue working with the WB to soon complete this important document.
For her part, Georgieva noted that Viet Nam’s success came as a result of good policies. She thanked the government and agencies of Viet Nam for their close cooperation with the WB, asking the two sides to uphold this spirit in the future. The CEO of the IBRD and IDA asked the Vietnamese government to continue directing the timely distribution of the WB-funded resources for projects in order to avoid interruption during the implementation process. Georgieva said she would assign the WB Country Director in Viet Nam to work closely with the country’s authorized agencies to resolve any arising problems.
P.V