Speed up disbursement of ODA capital

Foreign capital investment accounts for a significant proportion of the country's total public investment. Photo : Duc Thanh

Urgent to speed up progress

Right before the Conference on Promoting Public Investment Disbursement chaired by the Prime Minister, scheduled to be held on October 19, the Ministry of Finance held a meeting with ministries, branches and localities to promote the progress of ODA capital disbursement.

“Foreign capital investment accounts for a significant proportion of the country’s total public investment. Therefore, accelerating the disbursement of this capital source is not only an urgent requirement to promote growth, but also a key task to ensure the effective use of loans and maintain national prestige with international partners,” said Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Quoc Phuong.

Referring to the long-standing assessment of the disbursement of public investment capital in general, and public investment capital from foreign sources in particular, that "there have been positive changes, but still have not met the set requirements", Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong emphasized that it is necessary to find the root cause, thereby urging and promoting the disbursement progress, so that this year it can reach 100% of the plan, as the target set by the Government .

According to the report of the Ministry of Finance, the total foreign capital plan for 2025 assigned by the Prime Minister is more than 23,416 billion VND, of which 11,060 billion VND is allocated to ministries and branches, 12,356 billion VND is allocated to localities. Along with that, 2,178 billion VND of planned capital for 2024 is extended to 2025.

However, as of October 14, despite great efforts, capital disbursement from this source only reached 18.68%. It is estimated that by the end of October 2025, the disbursement rate will reach about 20%. This figure is equivalent to the rate of the same period in 2021, but much lower than the rate of the same period in 2024 (30.62%) and 2023 (38.09%), much lower than the Government's target of 100% disbursement this year.

The Ministry of Finance is studying the development of a separate fund model to receive and disburse ODA loans, in order to ensure disbursement progress while maintaining transparency and visibility to international donors. This mechanism is expected to help shorten procedural time and improve the efficiency of public investment capital use, especially in the fields of infrastructure, energy and sustainable development.

“This requires ministries, branches, localities and project owners to implement more drastic measures to complete disbursement tasks,” said Mr. Vu Hoang Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Debt Management and Foreign Economic Relations (Ministry of Finance).

In fact, the general disbursement rate is like that, but many ministries, branches and localities have not yet disbursed foreign capital public investment plans, some localities have a disbursement rate of 0%. The reasons are due to difficulties in domestic procedures and procedures with donors, some projects have not yet signed loan agreements, there are also problems related to site clearance, material unit prices...

“In Dong Nai, the slow disbursement progress is due to problems with procedures for signing loan agreements with foreign partners,” said the leader of Dong Nai Department of Finance, asking the Government and central agencies to help resolve problems in the process of approving international loan agreements. Currently, in Dong Nai, all preparations are ready, just waiting for legal procedures to be able to implement the project and disburse the allocated capital.

Meanwhile, in Hung Yen, the problem lies in the appraisal and selection of international consultants for a number of ODA projects on ecological infrastructure development and environmental resource conservation. Lai Chau and Ha Tinh are facing difficulties in adjusting loan agreements, appraising bidding plans and approving investment documents...

Ready to speed up disbursement

There is a story that continues to be mentioned in the working session on promoting ODA capital disbursement organized by the Ministry of Finance. That is, a number of ministries and branches continue to "request capital return" for the 2025 plan, because up to this point they have not been able to disburse all of it.

Data from the Ministry of Finance shows that 7 ministries, branches and 13 localities have sent official dispatches and entered them into the Public Investment System to request adjustments to reduce the foreign capital plan for 2025, with an amount of over VND 7,535 billion, accounting for 39.24% of the foreign capital plan assigned by the Prime Minister.

This situation has not just appeared this year. However, the difficulty this year is that no ministry, branch or locality has requested additional capital. To transfer capital while still ensuring the annual budget, there must be a "receiver and a returner". Otherwise, the entire annual budget must be adjusted, but to do so, it must be submitted to the National Assembly, which takes a lot of time.

"Therefore, it is important that when building the budget, ministries, branches and localities need to carefully review the project preparation capacity, implementation capacity and capital disbursement, to avoid the situation of building a budget that exceeds the implementation capacity and then having to request a plan adjustment," said Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong.

At this time, the 2026 public investment plan, including the foreign capital public investment plan, is being developed. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance recommends that project management agencies and project owners, when developing the 2026 capital plan, should closely follow the project implementation capacity, prioritize capital allocation for projects that end in the year, projects eligible for capital allocation, transitional projects, urgent and effective projects with the ability to disburse quickly; minimize the cancellation of estimates and transfer of resources to the following year...

2026 is expected to be an important milestone, marking the first year of implementing the 2026-2030 Medium-Term Public Investment Plan. This is also a decisive starting step, laying the foundation for a new development period. Therefore, planning work is very important.

“In 2026, conditions and procedures will be much more favorable and simplified to the maximum. This is also the time when the two-level local government system will operate stably, and technical infrastructure, human resources and project management boards will be fully consolidated. Therefore, there is no longer any reason to delay the implementation and disbursement of public investment capital,” Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong emphasized.

But before preparing for next year's public investment plan, Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong directed that it is necessary to continue to accelerate the disbursement progress of the 2025 capital plan. Speaking at a meeting with localities, acknowledging the difficulties reported by localities, the Deputy Minister said that he felt "reassured" when the problems were not related to the merger of administrative boundaries and the implementation of the 2-level local government model, although this would affect the progress of project implementation and disbursement.

According to the Deputy Minister, the remaining problems, if they are under the authority of ministries, branches and localities, should be promptly resolved to facilitate project disbursement; if they are under the authority of the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry will focus on resolving them completely. The Ministry will also request donors to have a mechanism to promptly remove obstacles and harmonize procedures.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/day-nhanh-giai-ngan-von-oda-d414281.html