Vietnam

The objective of the Public Financial Management Reform Project for Vietnam is to strengthen the recipient's capacity to plan, execute, and report on its budget and... Show More + to improve the transparency and accountability of the budgetary systems and processes. The closing date of the project will be extended from February 28, 2013 to October 31, 2013. The extension is necessary to ensure successful hand-over of the treasury and budget management information system (TABMIS) from the contractor to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and complete the remaining critical activities. Reallocation will bring the following changes: (1) delivering TABMIS under a turn-key contract covering both goods and operating costs; and (2) utilizing the remaining fund to meet the additional consultancy and training needs in order to fully achieve the objectives of the project. Show Less -

The development objective of the Third Rural Transport Project (RTP3) is to reduce travel costs and improve access to markets, off-farm economic opportunities, and social... Show More + services for poor rural communities in the 33 participating provinces in Northern and Central Vietnam. The purpose of this restructuring paper is to request an approval for the amendment to the DFID (Department for International Development) Trust Fund Grant Agreement for the Third Rural Transport Project (RTP3), which is the only child fund, for an increase in the Grant amount as well as associated changes. The additional amount of the Grant to the Government will be £3,562,500, which will increase the total amount of the Grant from £10,620,000 to £14,182,500. The additional funds will be applied to the deployment of the Vietnam Provincial Roads Maintenance Management system (VPRoMMs). Show Less -

The development objective of the Mekong Transport Infrastructure Development Project for Vietnam is to improve access to markets by businesses, farmers and the poor... Show More + with lower logistics costs resulting from the alleviation of key physical and institutional bottlenecks of the main transport corridors in the Mekong Delta region. The restructuring will involve the amendment of the International Development Association (IDA) Financing Agreement to revise the disbursement schedule in order to consolidate the current 40 disbursement categories. The project restructuring will also involve the amendment of the Administration Agreement, signed between the Bank and the Donor (AusAID), to extend the end disbursement date to June 30, 2014, and the AusAID Trust Fund Grant Agreement, signed between the Bank and the Borrower (the Government of Vietnam), to: (i) provide a one-year extension of the closing date for the Grant from December 30, 2012 to December 31, 2013, to coincide with the current closing date of the IDA Financing Agreement, in order to complete the on-going works in Can Tho and Tra Vinh provinces; and (ii) revise the disbursement schedule in order to consolidate the current 30 disbursement categories into a single new category for investments implemented by 13 Mekong Delta provincial authorities. Show Less -

The objectives of the Vietnam Tax Administration Modernization Project (TAMP) are to assist the general department of taxation (GDT) in strengthening governance in tax... Show More + administration and to increase the level of voluntary compliance with the tax system by improving the effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability of the tax administration. The amendments involve: (i) the project component will be simplified in accordance with the recommendations of the mid-term review mission. The redesign will neither affect the definition of the project development objectives (PDOs) nor the financing plan or total amount of resources required for project implementation; (ii) the redesign of the project components will require reallocation of project proceeds in both Financing Agreement and the Grant Agreement; and (iii) the closing date of both Financing Agreement and Grant Agreement will be extended from June 30, 2013 to May 30, 2015, to allow for completion of the project's activities. Show Less -

Ratings for the First and Second Public Investment Reform Development Policy Operation Project were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory; risk to development... Show More + outcome was low; Bank performance was moderately satisfactory; and borrower performance was also moderately satisfactory. Some lessons learned includes: an important lesson learned is that it is difficult to achieve significant institutional strengthening in the short time frame of a development policy operation prepared for crisis response. The Bank's decision to design the crisis response as a thematic Development Policy Loan (DPL) focusing on a high priority reform area was correct and paid off in terms of garnering the attention of top policy makers on this issue. There is plenty of evidence, as detailed earlier, about the Government's commitment on making progress on reforming the public investment system and restructuring the State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) sector. The Bank will need to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, especially in the public investment area, given the decentralization of decision-making authority on public investments and the challenge to Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in leading the reform process in this decentralized environment. It was not feasible for the Bank to engage more deeply with the other key stakeholders, in particular the provinces, in the limited time frame of the Public Investment Reform (PIR) series, but this engagement will be necessary going forward with the successor Economic Management and Competitiveness Credit (EMCC) operation. For smooth implementation of DPLs, consideration of potential time needed for the completion of triggers must take into account the following factors: (i) borrower's procedures for issuing legal documents and (ii) potential coordination issues among borrower's agencies. The two programmatic operations had a number of triggers that dealt with issuance or preparation of legal documents that required a considerable amount of time for the government to complete the internal procedures not only within the cabinet but also requires the interaction with the national assembly. Show Less -