WB Country Director for Vietnam Victoria Kwakwa made this commitment at a working session with Finance Minister Vuong Dinh Hue in Hanoi on Feb. 17.

The WB official praised economic restructuring efforts by the Vietnamese Government and said the WB is ready to share with the Finance Ministry results of research on investment mechanisms for infrastructure.

She said the WB wants to coordinate with the ministry in a research project on developing financial resources from land and transport infrastructure for development.

Kwakwa also said the WB will work with the Finance Ministry and relevant agencies soon to implement loans of about 250 million USD in the 2012 fiscal year for a programme on economic management for competitive capacity.

At the meeting, Minister Hue asked the WB to provide more official development assistance (ODA) to Vietnam to develop socio-economic infrastructure, including direct assistance to the State budget.

On WB projects in Vietnam , Hue said his ministry will actively coordinate with the WB and relevant Vietnamese agencies to clear difficulties and speed up disbursement of those projects, especially the tax management programme and the school education quality assurance programme.

The tax management programme, which has been carried out since 2008, received 80 million USD as loans from the WB, 5 million USD as non-refundable aid from Japan , and 12.5 million USD from the Vietnamese Government.

The school education quality assurance programme has a total capital of 181.4 million USD, including 127 million USD as loans from the International Development Association (IDA) under the WB./.