Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has approved the financial mechanism for a power transmission project, allowing it to borrow loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). The National Power Transmission Corporation (NPT) is tasked with building and upgrading 500-kV and 220-kV lines and transformer stations in six cities and provinces in the south and Central Highlands. The power transmission project has total estimated cost of $1.75 billion, of which $730 million is financed from the ADB’s ordinary capital resources (OCR), the Radio Voice of Vietnam said, giving no figure on the loan from the AFD. The loans will be rolled out in four phases of the project, which started in 2012 and will end in 2020. Earlier this Feb, the ADB signed a loan agreement of EUR75 million ($101.3 million) with the ADB co-funding for the Pleiku-Cau Bong high-voltage electrical transmission line. Since 2000, the AFD has pledged funding of nearly EUR210 million to support Vietnam’s projects on power generation, transmission and distribution. Upgrading the electrical transmission network will help Vietnam minimize power loss, which reached 9% in 2012. (Vov.vn May 17, Chinhphu.vn May 16)
