Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank’s vice president for East Asia and Pacific, highly praised Vietnam for its efforts to repay debts to the global lender. Vietnam’s ability to fulfill its debt obligations to the World Bank (WB) is always guaranteed and the country is always serious about debt repayment. “Vietnam has a spotless debt repayment record,” said Trotsenburg at a press briefing on... 

The World Bank on Wednesday approved the first Economic Management and Competitiveness Credit worth US$250 million for Vietnam to help the country with economic management reforms for higher productivity and competitiveness. The global lender’s board of directors in a press release said the concessional financing is to support reforms in seven policy areas to step up reforms in the country. The seven... 

Vietnam is expected to achieve around 5.7 percent economic growth in 2012 and 6.3 percent in 2013, according to a recent forecast by the World Bank (WB) in Hanoi. Year-end inflation is predicted to stay at 8-9 percent in 2012 and fall to 6 percent next year. According to WB experts, Vietnam’s economic environment has improved in recent times with slowing inflation, stable exchange rates, rising... 

Vietnam should practice prudence in managing interest rates and rely on economic changes to make sustainable decisions, said Victoria Kwakwa, country director of the World Bank (WB) in Vietnam. As Resolution 11 is being deployed efficiently, all the macro-economic indicators show positive signs, including lower inflation, stable forex rates and consolidated foreign reserves. The ceiling deposit rate... 

Land prices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are equivalent to 80 years of rental costs, the World Bank has said. The World Bank (WB) said in its recent report on Vietnam’s urbanisation that with such high prices, only five per cent of Hanoi’s population could afford to buy land. Dean Cira, WB’s Lead Specialist and Urban Sector co-ordinator, said the situation indicated the huge disparity between... 

As of December 31, 2010, Vietnam’s total foreign debt is recorded at VND835 trillion (US$40.6 billion), accounting for 42.2% of the country’s GDP last year, the Finance Minister reported. Japan and the International Development Association, a World Bank fund, are Vietnam’s biggest creditors with debt worth $6.1 billion and $8.4 billion respectively. Other big creditors are the Asian Development... 

Vietnamese banks’ high dong interest rates are expected to cool slightly due to improved liquidity as the central bank cut one of its key rates to tackle distorted rate-levels, bankers said on Monday. On Monday, the central bank lowered the cost of funds for banks via open market operations, cutting the reverse repo rate to 14 percent from 15 percent, giving the market hope that interest rates... 

HSBC in its latest report on Vietnam’s economy said inflation remains the most striking challenge for the country this year, as the consumer price index (CPI) is expected to surpass 20% by end-June compared to one year ago. The bank in its report has revised up its CPI forecast for Vietnam that will average 16.7% in 2011 versus 14.3% previously and 9.7% in 2012 versus 8.9% previously. Although strict... 

World Bank experts on Thursday advised Vietnam to continue implementation of the Government’s Resolution No. 11 in a stable and effective way to reset three macro economic indices of inflation, forex rate and foreign reserve. WB chief economic expert Deepak Mishra, at the press conference on Thursday prior to the Consultative Group’s mid-term meeting in Hanoi, said Vietnam had gained success in... 

Most of remittances sent to Vietnam are invested in property while a smaller part is deposited at banks or used to buy durable products, according to an international immigration conference in Hanoi on Wednesday. Experts Nguyen Viet Cuong and Daniel Mont from the World Bank said those facts were extracted from a survey conducted in 2008 by polling over 4,000 households having remittances in Vietnam....