Hanoi (VNA) - 🤪The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Vietnam has disbursed 10.8 billion JPY (75 million USD) worth of Official Development Assistance capital in Vietnam in exclusive funding for the private sector, between April 2021 and March 2022, according to Chief Representative Shimizu Akira.

To improve infrastructure quality by utilising capital and technology, JICA has granted Vietnam 5 million USD in non-refundable aid, Shimizu told a press conference held in Hanoi on October 12 to review JICA Vietnam's activities in the first half of the fiscal year 2022 (from April 1 to September 30). Shimizu said among the major projects to be implemented in the time ahead, JICA will focus on high-quality infrastructure to support Vietnam's in economic development.  According to the JICA Chief Representative, Vietnam has always maintained its stable economic growth, mainly driven by expanded export and FDI.  The ODA will further play an important role in infrastructure development, a growth driver of Vietnam, Shimizu said, expressing his hope that the Southeast Asian nation will continue to use the capital effectively in the time ahead.  Over the past four years, loans that Vietnam took from international organisations, including JICA, dropped 16-20%, which signals that the national economy is on the rise and is influencing the international arena.  Shimizu noted his belief that Vietnam can use the ODA loans within 30 or 40 years with low, stable interest rates, as a tool to mobilise capital for infrastructure development.  Apart from infrastructure, JICA has helped strengthen Vietnam's capacity in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and responding to infectious diseases by donating 850 million JPY worth of medical supplies, including ECMO machines; and transferring technology and providing key equipment to a new Biosafety Level-3 Laboratory (BSL-3) of Ho Chi Minh City's Pasteur Institute, worth more than 200 million JPY in total. According to Shimizu, such aid packages are intended to improve Vietnam's capacity for COVID-19 diagnostic testing and its response to infectious diseases.  In personnel training, JICA has cooperated with the Vietnam-Japan University since 2015. A total of 260 students have completed Master's programmes and more than 200 others are studying at the university.  The Japanese agency has also provided ODA for HCM City to implement the city's second phase of a water environment improvement project. The project aims to improve the local environment through wastewater treatment capacity building and flooding damage control. It has signed a loan agreement of up to 25 million USD with a private Vietnamese company for an onshore wind power project in Quang Tri, Shimizu said, adding all the 51 carriages to be used on HCM City's Metro Line No.1 are manufactured by Japan.

Further support in human resource development, health care, energy 

Shimizu said JICA plans to offer the Vietnam – Japan University technical support and funding to launch new doctoral training programmes and establish a new campus in Hoa Lac in 2023, hoping to raise the number of the university's students to 6,000. It will cooperate with three centrally-run Vietnamese hospitals, namely Bach Mai Hospital (Hanoi), Hue Central Hospital (Thua Thien-Hue), and Cho Ray Hospital (HCM City), to provide remote training for local medical systems as part of JICA's Initiative for Global Health and Medicine.  Additionally, it will enhance partnership with Japan's private enterprises, non-governmental organisations and universities to help Vietnam improve rehabilitation and nursing care services, given that the country is facing new challenges like population ageing. JICA will assist Vietnam in achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 by financing new solar and wind power projects, developing an eco-industrial park in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, accelerating circular economy and responding to climate change, he said./.