Vietnam's orientation on ODA and preferential loans in the coming time

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son, Head of the National Steering Committee on ODA and preferential loans, speaks. Photo: An Dang/VNA

On the afternoon of April 13, chairing the meeting of the National Steering Committee on ODA and preferential loans, Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son, Head of the Steering Committee, stated that accelerating projects and using projects effectively is the most important thing, and how to improve processes, shorten procedures, and mobilize capital for the development process.

Whatever problems can be done for the country must be tried and handled immediately.

Improve capital efficiency

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, disbursement of public investment capital to improve the efficiency of capital use, including ODA capital and foreign preferential loans, is very important to serve the purpose of unlocking resources for national development. To maintain a high growth rate in the coming time, it is necessary to use ODA capital effectively.

However, the disbursement of ODA capital in recent times has been slow. In the period 2021-2024, ODA capital disbursement only reached 52%/year. In the first 4 months of 2025, it only reached 4.6%, very low, while the average disbursement of public investment capital in the first 3 months of the year nationwide was about 8%.

The Prime Minister's working groups on inspecting and urging the disbursement of public investment capital in ministries, branches and localities have recently pointed out many limitations and shortcomings in the management and use of ODA capital and foreign preferential loans, of which the causes are both subjective and objective, but the subjective causes are the main ones.

“From the ODA project implementation procedures to the implementation process, from site clearance to project implementation steps, the capacity and responsibility of officials all have limitations leading to slow disbursement of public investment capital in general, especially ODA capital disbursement,” the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out.

The Deputy Prime Minister acknowledged that ministries, branches and localities have made profound, responsible and practical statements, frankly pointing out limitations, shortcomings, difficulties and obstacles, and proposing solutions to accelerate the mobilization of ODA capital and foreign preferential loans, increasing resources for development in the coming time.

Believing that social resources are decisive, strategic, and long-term fundamental, but mobilizing external resources is also very important, especially in industries and fields where we do not have enough scientific and technological capacity to deploy, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that ODA capital has helped Vietnam a lot in the development process.

Vietnam's achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ahead of schedule is largely due to ODA capital.

Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son said that our orientation in the future is to focus on projects with large ODA loans, high incentives, short implementation time and reduced administrative procedures, focusing on railway, aviation, climate change infrastructure projects... It is necessary to build a number of key projects that Vietnam needs to work with partners.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Finance to absorb comments, review and update the report to prepare well for the meeting of the Steering Committee with foreign donors in early May; preside over and coordinate with relevant agencies to submit to the Prime Minister to complete the Steering Committee before April 18; complete legal documents to remove institutional obstacles, develop a decree to replace Decree 114/2021/ND-CP and Decree 20/2023/ND-CP on management and use of ODA and foreign preferential loans according to simplified procedures, and submit to the Government before April 30.

The Ministry must review these decrees, decentralize and delegate more strongly, cut down on administrative procedures, clarify work, people, responsibilities, investors and results to serve as a basis for monitoring, urging and implementing.

Along with that, the Ministry of Finance urgently presides over and coordinates with agencies to propose to the Government to amend relevant laws such as the Law on Public Investment, the Law on State Budget, and the Law on Public Debt Management. The amended contents must be very specific and calculated to remove obstacles for previous projects.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reviews outstanding issues, submits amendments to a number of articles of the Law on International Treaties, and reduces procedures, especially the signing of international agreements related to ODA and preferential loans.

Slow disbursement due to many problems and shortcomings

Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Quoc Phuong said that the total ODA loans and foreign concessional loans for the 2021-2024 period is 3,316.59 million USD.

In 2025, the task of negotiating and signing new loan agreements was urgently carried out. In the first 4 months of the year, negotiations were completed to be able to immediately sign a loan with a total value of 413.84 million USD for 5 projects and sign 3 framework agreements with Germany, Austria and Spain for the period 2025-2030.

Meeting scene. Photo: An Dang/VNA

Up to now, there has been a basic agreement with development partners to be able to sign agreements and loan agreements for 23 projects and 1 loan for budget support (borrowed from the Japanese Government), accordingly, the total expected amount of agreements and loan agreements that can be signed in 2025 is about 1,476 million USD.

Regarding disbursement, Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong said that in the 2021-2024 period, 64,331.87/130,997.67 billion VND of planned capital was disbursed (excluding data from the Ministry of National Defense).

In 2025, as of March 31, the disbursement of foreign capital nationwide reached VND294 billion, equivalent to 1.26% of the assigned annual plan; estimated disbursement by April 30 reached VND1,077 billion, equivalent to 4.6% of the annual plan, excluding the disbursement of the previous year's extended capital plan. At the beginning of the year, project owners focused on disbursing the extended capital plan and completing special account documents.

The difficulties and problems raised by the Deputy Minister of Finance are legal problems and problems due to differences in policies and procedures between Vietnam and donors.

In the past, there were some shortcomings in legal regulations, directly in regulations on management and use of ODA capital and preferential loans such as: regulations on collateral of public service units, negotiation procedures still take many steps, including overlapping steps according to the provisions of the Law on International Treaties; limit on loan limit for a customer of a credit institution.

Projects using ODA capital and preferential loans must comply with Vietnamese law and donor regulations, typically regulations on bidding, social and environmental policies, site clearance, and resettlement. The procedures of Vietnam and donors are different and not in harmony.

In addition, the investment preparation work of the competent authorities is still slow in all stages, administrative procedures are lengthy; there are problems in the stages of establishing, assigning, adjusting capital plans, site clearance and counterpart capital arrangement; inadequacies and limitations in resources and capacity of the competent authorities, project owners and project management boards, etc.

At the meeting, ministries, branches and localities reviewed all management and use of ODA capital and preferential loans in the past time, thereby building and perfecting institutions, allocating capital, and disbursing capital sources; identifying difficulties, obstacles, causes, responsibilities of relevant agencies and solutions./.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/dinh-huong-cua-viet-nam-ve-oda-va-von-vay-uu-dai-trong-thoi-gian-toi-698814.html