Ireland to Provide More ODA for Vietnam Next Years: Ambassador

Ireland will continue providing more official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam in the coming years, outgoing Ambassador Maeve Collins said at a recent meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi. Collins noted that Ireland provided over EUR50 million to Vietnam during the past five years, focusing on poverty reduction to help improve living conditions for the Vietnamese people. For his part, Dung praised the ambassador’s contributions to developing relations between the two sides and said that it was Vietnam’s consistent policy of boosting cooperation with Ireland in the economic sector and in education and training and culture as well as at international forums. Dung also thanked the Irish government and people for their support, especially for ODA capital, which effectively helped Vietnam in socio-economic development and poverty reduction. He expressed his wish that Ireland would continue to provide assistance to Vietnam and supply more scholarships for Vietnamese students. (An Ninh thu Do – Capital Security Aug 15 p17, cpv.org.vn Aug 13)