The Mid-term Consultative Group (CG) meeting of donors to Vietnam opened in Buon Ma Thuot City in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak on June 8.
Opening a one-day meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem called on the donors to pay attention to the risk of relapsing into poverty that faces those who have just escaped from hardship, as an effect of the current economic downturn. It threatens to erase the results of great efforts by Vietnam and its donors in this field, he said.
He also expressed hopes that the donors would help with socio-economic development in the Central Highlands where the poverty rate remains at a high level.
More than 300 delegates will focus their discussion on recent socio-economic situation and forecast for 2009, the economic downturn’s social impacts and the Vietnamese government’s policies to deal with these issues.
They will also touch upon the country’s strategies to fight corruption and cope with climate change as well as the efficiency of ODA.
The meeting is also seen as a chance for the donors to see with their own eyes the socio-economic situation in the Central Highlands in order to take practical actions to help the region overcome its difficulties.
The World Bank (WB) Country Director Victoria Kwakwa and the Japanese and Canadian Ambassadors to Vietnam highlighted the Vietnamese Government’s efforts to implement measures to ensure the sustainable economic development.
They also committed to continue assisting Vietnam to maintain a fast economic growth rate.
At the 2008 Consultative Group meeting in Hanoi on December 4-5 last year, international donors committed more than VND 5 billion to help Vietnam ’s poverty reduction and development programme.
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