Careful policies of managing foreign debts at safe rates assisted Vietnam curtail the bad impacts of the Asian monetary crunch in 1997, and is helping them weather the storm of the current US fiscal crunch.
It has been reported that cautious foreign debt management assisted the enhancement of national economy and helping them weather the storm of the present US financial crisis.
According to the Finance Ministry, ODA commitment to Vietnam arrived at 29 billion USD during the period of 2000-2007, comprising 5.43 billion USD pledged in 2007 alone.
In addition to assurance by big financial institutions, like the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank, and traditional donors comprising Japan, France and Germany. However, further commitments are likely to take place from the ROK, China and various East European countries.
A number of European banks have also offered the Vietnamese Government with soft loans for its investment projects and for the extension of the production.
These foreign loans have provided an impetus to Vietnam in further enhancing its socio-economic infrastructure, particularly in the areas of transportation, energy, agriculture and rural development, forestry and irrigation, in order to attract higher levels of foreign and domestic capital and to attain economic growth.
Currently, ODA loans account for 11 percent of the country’s whole investment capital and 29 percent of the State budget’s establishment investment.
Since 2004, Vietnam has taken up a long-term foreign debt plan to handle foreign debts carefully in order to make sure a appropriate economic growth.
However, the Finance Ministry is immediately working out a mid-term foreign debt management programme in the wake of the present global monetary crunch.
In its November session this year, the National Assembly discussed a law on the management of public debts, which is scheduled to be sanctioned in May 2009 to offer a standardized legal tool for the efficient management of foreign debts.
The Finance Ministry has identified eight essential tasks that must be attained to reform successful foreign debt management procedures, comprising boosting its market forecast capacity, analyzing capital sources, and diversifying capital attraction channels.