Vietnam’s Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc on Monday (26 Oct) signed an exchange of notes with Japanese ambassador Mitsuo Sakaba to receive the official development assistance (ODA) loan to develop five projects and programs.

The aid will go to socioeconomic infrastructure, environmental protection and foreign investment attraction projects, ambassador Sakaba said at the signing ceremony for the exchange of notes in Hanoi.

The new loan has sent the total ODA amount provided by the Japanese government since 1992 rising to over 1.5 billion yen.

The official aid agreement will be signed by both countries in Japan on November 10 when the Japanese government provides an emergency credit worth 55 billion yen to help Vietnam cushion the impact of the economic crisis. The two nations are also preparing for ODA in the last half of this fiscal year with an amount equivalent to that in the first half.

Japan’s ODA loans for Vietnam may amount to 183 billion yen (US$2 billion) this year, exceeding the 2008 record of up to 100 billion yen, Tsuno Motonori, chief representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was quoted by Vnexpress.

This is also the first time Japan has divided ODA loans into two halves in a fiscal year to grant timely financial support for Vietnam.

The five projects and programs to be financed by Japan’s ODA are a bypass of National Highway 1 with four billion yen, Thai Binh 1 thermo-power plant with 20.74 billion yen, small infrastructure developments with 18 billion yen, energy conservation and production of renewable energy with 4.6 billion yen, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises with 17.3 billion yen.

The Ministry of Finance and JICA will sign credit agreements for the projects. The continuity of Japan’s aid for Vietnam indicates a strategic partnership between the two nations, and improvements in Vietnam’s legal environment, management of ODA-funded projects and corruption prevention.

Japan late last year suspended ODA for Vietnam over a corruption scandal involving Vietnamese officials in the East-West Highway and Water Environment project in HCMC and Japanese executives of Pacific Consultants International. Japan resumed aid for Vietnam in March this year thanks to the Vietnamese Government’s measures to combat corruption.