Vietnam will get the biggest-ever loan from the ASEAN Infrastructure Fund (AIF), set up by ASEAN nations and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to boost infrastructure development, AIF Board Members said. The AIF approved a pipeline of projects to be financed by the fund, including a $100 million loan to a power transmission project in Vietnam. The power project will be the single biggest under AIF financing. The AIF was set up in 2012 to lend about $300 million a year to infrastructure projects. But with infrastructure needs in Southeast Asia projected at $60 billion a year until 2020, there is a need to increase the AIF’s capital base. The fund is preparing for credit rating analyses that will support a successful bond sale that could attract the central banks of China, Japan, South Korea and other countries. A bigger capital base will allow it to also lend to the private sector or state-owned enterprises undertaking public-private partnership (PPP) projects. ASEAN member countries should issue a common policy framework on the PPP model to attract more private investors, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia in the Philippines on May 22. (Thoi Bao Kinh Doanh – Business Times May 26 p26, Reuters May 23)
