The Ambassador of France paid a visit to Thai Nguyen

On December 9th , Mr. Jean-Noel Poirie, the Ambassador of the Republic of France to Vietnam, visited and worked in Thai Nguyen province. Accompanying the Ambassador, there were Mr. Michel Drobniak, French Economic Counselor, representatives of contractors and project managers of France. Working with the delegation were Mr. Duong Ngoc Long, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee, Mr. Nhu Van Tam, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee, leaders of related departments.

The main purpose of this visit of the Ambassador is to grasp the status of implementation of the Drainage and Sewage Treatment Project in Thai Nguyen city (use the loans of the French government's ODA), consistent with provincial leaders on measures to accelerate the progress of the project. Mr. Duong Ngoc Long expressed delighted to welcome the first time visit in Thai Nguyen of the Ambassador Jean-Noel Poirier at his position on the French Embassy in the Republic of Vietnam. On this occasion, Mr. Chairman introduced the Ambassador and members of the delegation of the summary information of the province, emphasized the advantages of local investment attraction and desired to welcome the businesses from France to  to survey and seek investment opportunities in Thai Nguyen. French Ambassador thanked for the welcome prosperity of the province's leaders; and impressed with the development of Thai Nguyen recently.

At the meeting, the representative of Project’s investor, Thai Nguyen Drainage and Urban Infrastructure Development Company, reported on the deployment process, the current problems of the project, raised some proposals to provincial leaders and the French Ambassador which were concerned the reciprocal capital assignment and disbursement of ODA for the project. Accordingly, the Thai Nguyen Drainage and Sewage Treatment Project was approved in 2000 with the converted (adjusted) investment of 950 billion VND in total, of which over 410 billion VND were from French Government's ODA, in order to build a modern drainage and sewage treatment system in northern Thai Nguyen city. Currently there are 9 completed construction packages, 11 abuilding packages, the land acquisition volume was 20,8ha/21,3ha, the equipment import has finished, 3 packages using ODA has been implemented with nearly 90% of the value. However, the project execution was significantly slow in comparison with requests because of main reasons such as design alteration, untimely reciprocal capital assignment and accrued expenditure due to delays.

The French Ambassador desired progress of the project was promoted to complete as planned. About the proposal of supplementing ODA for the project, the Ambassador said that French Government was facing with difficulties in economic, finance so it could not be dealt. He suggested that Thai Nguyen province and stakeholders in Vietnam discussed and came to a decision of solution of reciprocal capital assignment.

Mr. Duong Ngoc Long emphasized that in order to accelerate the project’s progress, strive for project completion in late 2016, the Provincial People’s Committee has built the Action Plan such as entrusting negotiation with France contractors to investors, optimizing plan of additional cost. The province has directed the related departments to research use of reciprocal capital for installation costs of imported equipment, asked France contractors to oversee, instruct installation technique. About the reciprocal capital, Thai Nguyen province will allocate priority expenditure for this key project and ensure fund as plan. Mr. Duong Ngoc Long hoped that the French Ambassador will continue to support and facilitate the disbursement of the remaining ODA capital and technical support for the project.