On May 24th, 2019 in Hanoi, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) jointly organized the second Coordination Meeting of the Joint Coordination Committee of “Strengthening the capacity of the SBV to implement monetary policy and statistical forecast” Project funded by JICA. The meeting was chaired by Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong.
Also attending the meeting were representatives of the SBV’s International Cooperation Department, the Monetary Policy Department, the Monetary Forecasting & Statistics Department. On the side of JICA, there were Mr. Kitamura Shu - Vice Chief Representative of JICA Vietnam Office, some experts of the Project, and JICA Office staff.
At the meeting, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong welcomed Mr. Kitamura Shu, the Project experts and officers of the JICA Vietnam Office to attend the second Joint Coordination Committee meeting of the Project at the SBV. On behalf of the SBV's Board of Management, the Deputy Governor highly appreciated the practical and timely support of JICA for the SBV during the past years, especially the close coordination in the process of implementing the Project to strengthen the capacity of the SBV in the fields of monetary policy, analysis and statistical forecast and implemented in the period of 2017 – 2019 with the objectives of strengthening the knowhow and skills in economic analysis, forecasting and policy-making of a core group of officers at the SBV. Thus, the SBV’s capacity in implementing the monetary policy can be enhanced toward higher flexibility, effectiveness and appropriateness, contributing significantly to the macroeconomic stability and supporting the sustainable economic growth.
The exchanges in the meeting focused on summarizing the implementation progress of the Project in 2018; proposing a workplan for the Project in 2019; taking note of the feedbacks of the SBV units participating in the Project. Based on those, the two sides discussed and approved the Project Implementation Plan in 2019.
2018 was the second year of the Project implementation. The Deputy Governor also shared: “in order to timely accomplish the Project's objectives in accordance with the schedule, although Professor Watanabe, the principal expert of the Project, could not continue to work for the Project, JICA could manage to urgently arrange other experienced experts, who are professors with rich experience in working for the Bank of Japan, to provide prompt advice to the SBV.
SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong speaks at the meeting
During the implementation process, whenever a problems arises, the experts have been very frank and timely discussed and found a solution for the implementation of the Project in accordance with the initial objectives of the Project. In the past year, it can be seen that both the SBV and JICA have had many activities in all 3 components of the Project (Strengthening the capacity of analyzing and forecasting the economy; Adjusting the macroeconomic model; and the component on Strengthening the capacity to analyze and report on the monetary policy), which have achieved many encouraging results.
Sharing at the meeting, Mr. Kitamura Shu thanked Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong and the leaders of the SBV relevant units for spending time to work with the JICA delegation. He also thanked for the cooperative spirits and the seriousness in work of the SBV's staff during the implementation of the Project. “Through deep and thorough discussions, we have developed a detailed plan for the next year and identified appropriate targets for the Project”, Mr. Kitamura Shu stressed. The Vice Chief Representative of JICA Vietnam Office also expressed hopes to further strengthen the cooperative relationship with the SBV, so that the Project will be highly effective.
In recognition of the comments from JICA, Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong spoke highly of the JICA's enthusiastic, quick and valuable support. The Deputy Governor said that the SBV expects that, based on the information and situation that the SBV has provided, JICA will further study, collect and share the theoretical and practical practices to support the SBV to determine the appropriate inflation for Vietnam in the coming time. The Deputy Governor also emphasized the objective of acquiring expert opinions and recommendations to improve the quality of the reporting framework in the SBV's analysis and forecasting work. Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong also expressed her confidence that the Project would be implemented effectively, and achieving its expected results.
VA