Hanoi (VNA) – Payment and site clearance delayare major barriers to official development assistance (ODA)-funded projects inVietnam, chief representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA) in Vietnam Fujita Yasuo told a press conference in Hanoi on October 18.

In the first half of the fiscal year 2017 from April 1 –September 30, Japanese ODA-funded projects brought fruits to Vietnam, mostly inthe three pillars of promoting growth and competitiveness, coping withvulnerable issues and strengthening governance. Among them are a north-southhighway and a project to transfer vaccine production technology to Vietnam’sState-run POLYVAC company.

Procurement data also showed that Vietnamese firms wonnumerous contracts via ODA projects.

Yasuo said JICA highly values the Vietnamese government’sefforts to limit public debts, adding that ODA disbursement is not a majorfactor to increase public debts.

JICA suggests the Vietnamese government continue reviewingprocedures to promptly decide on budget allocation for projects using loans, hesaid.

In the near future, JICA will continue working more closelywith the Vietnamese government to discuss how to effectively devise and carryout priority projects, use capital from the private sector and Japanese firms.

During the six-month period, Japan committed nearly 61.8billion JPY worth of ODA to new projects, 51.2 billion USD of which wasdisbursed.

A project using non-refundable aid worth 1.8 billionJPY was also signed.-VNA