The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in coordination with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, on July 24 organised a workshop for the technical assistance project aimed at improving regional cooperation and integration (RCI) coordination and public investment planning in Vietnam.
“These are not easy tasks, but absolutely necessary if Vietnam is to achieve its aim set under the 2011-2015 Socio-economic Development Plan to create collective strengths of economic development under different subregional initiatives”, ADB Principal Country Economist Yumiko Tamura said at the event.
In late 2012, ADB approved a technical assistance worth 800,000 USD financed by the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction to help Vietnam improve the coordination of RCI initiatives and strengthen the capacity for regional cooperation investment planning and maximise RCI’s contribution to national development goals, she added.
Representatives from central agencies, provinces and development partners said that though Vietnam is involved in numerous RCI initiatives, the weakness in coordination, information sharing and capacity has been hindering the complementarities and synergy between and among RCI programmes and projects, affecting the achievement of their intended results and the efficiency of public investments.
They emphasised the need to improve this matter as RCI remains to be one of the key elements of Vietnam ’s medium-term development strategy and the efficiency of public investments is among the most important factors to ensure Vietnam ’s sustainable growth, given the country is demanding infrastructure improvement and social services.
During the workshop, representatives also discussed challenges constraining the coordination and investment planning of RCI activities, and agreed on objectives, approaches and key activities to enhance the efficiency of public investments involving RCI initiatives./.