The World Bank (WB) will provide a $250 million loan to help upgrading urban area in the four Vietnamese northern provinces of Dien Bien, Bac Kan, Cao Bang and Thai Nguyen. The project is part of the national urban area upgrade strategy which will run until 2020, the Thoi bao Kinh te newspaper reported Aug 19. The wider national infrastructure upgrade program was launched in 2007 in the southern economic of Ho Chi Minh City, the northern provinces of Nam Dinh and Haiphong and Mekong Delta city of Can Tho. The WB has pledged around $2.6 billion in official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam this year and also announced to finance over $6 billion for the country in the 2011-2013 fiscal years. (Thoi bao Kinh te – Economic Times Aug 19 p2, Nhan dan – The People Aug 19 p7)
