Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has thanked the World Bank for assistance in reforming the financial and banking sector in Vietnam, and pledged to ensure the nation adheres to international practices and standards.

Ganh Hao Bridge in Ca Mau Province is one of the projects the World Bank is supporting.

He said Vietnam was stepping up the equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) to ensure their relevancy in a market economy and improve their corporate governance and business efficiency.

The Vietnamese leader thanked the bank for helping the Ministry of Planning and Investment devise a public-private partnership (PPP) decree and promised to quickly ratify the document.

He also asked for bank support to the Long Thanh-Dau Giay-Phan Thiet highway project, which he said was intended to be a model for other PPP deals.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung meets with World Bank Country Director, Victoria Kwakwa, in Hanoi on February 11.

Both underscored the need to take a multi-sector approach to mitigating the harmful effects of climate change.

Dung said the Vietnamese Government had a strategic master plan for climate change and recently partnered the Dutch government in designing a plan to cope with rising sea levels for the Mekong Delta.

Commenting on the US$300 million in aid provided by the World Bank for climate-change mitigation, Dung said he hoped the lender would continue providing assistance to Vietnam in planting protective coastal forests.

Kwakwa said Vietnam had done an impressive job in streamlining administrative procedures, especially those related to taxation and social insurance.