Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam has recorded significant achievements in managingnational foreign debts over the past three decades, said an official at aworkshop held in Hanoi on January 26.

Vo HuuHien, Vice General Director of the Ministry of Finance’s Department of DebtManagement and External Finance, made the statement, adding that the effectivemanagement has transformed Vietnam from a poor and heavily indebted country intoa one receiving international organisations’ recognition as having a controlledexternal debt level and being excluded from the group of countries with a debtburden.

Accordingto data from the ministry, the public sector’s proportion in the structure ofthe national external debt decreased from 73.6 percent in 2010 to 63.4 percentin 2015 and 43.7 percent in 2020.

The growth rate of external debt balance of the public sector has also been strictly controlled, from the average of 13 percent a year in the period of 2011-15 to about 3 percent a year in the 2016-20 period, contributing to curbing direct debt obligations and State budget provisions.

The Government’s foreign loans are mainly ODA andconcessional loans (accounting for 98 per cent of the total Government external debt). To date, Vietnam has signed more than 85 billion USD worthof these loans.

AsVietnam became a low middle-income nation, all economic sectors, both publicand private, are enable to access foreign loans according to market conditions.

Theministry said, in the context of limited domestic resources, foreign borrowingfrom all economic sectors through flexible use of capital mobilisation formshas contributed to meeting investment needs of public construction projects,encouraging domestic saving, speeding up capital turnover, and tappingpotential resources of the economy to achieve socio-economic development goalsand macroeconomic stability.

Internationalorganisations recommended Vietnam consider and adjust the country's foreigndebt management policies and tools to better match each debt component’s riskcharacteristics and the country's development conditions.

Arepresentative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pointed to a number ofshortcomings in Vietnam's current management mechanism, including a lack offocus on risk sources and of self-insurance requirement.

Co-organisedby the ministry, the IMF, and the Asian Development Bank, the workshop aimed tocollect opinions for competent agencies to continue to study and complete the framework of foreign debt management policy, in accordance with the requirements for the medium and long term./.