Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh thanked ADB for its 30 years of cooperation and development with Vietnam, and for allocating 2 billion USD in capital for projects in Vietnam in recent times; affirming that the Vietnamese Government always considers ADB as one of the important, close, and trustworthy development partners, with many practical contributions to Vietnam's development process.

The Prime Minister suggested that in the new development phase, ADB should continue to cooperate more closely and effectively with Vietnam, supporting capital with new approaches, larger scale, preferential interest rates, quick procedures, and harmony between the two sides, focusing on a number of large, key, and pivotal projects that are transformational and state-changing in emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, Internet of Things, large strategic infrastructure projects such as airports, seaports, highways, etc., projects to respond to landslides and subsidence in the Mekong Delta and the Central region, energy centers, solar power, offshore wind power, hydrogen, power transmission systems, etc.

At the same time, the Prime Minister proposed expanding the scale of ADB's operations in Vietnam in the private sector, supporting businesses to participate more deeply in the global supply chain, and providing capital support to the private sector. Vietnam will develop policies to encourage the private sector to borrow capital from partners such as ADB.

The Prime Minister said that the Government has directed ministries and branches to actively review and evaluate policies, processes and procedures on ODA and public investment to adjust and improve them towards simplifying procedures, enhancing decentralization and delegation of authority, etc.; at the same time, review and resolve problems related to tax exemption procedures.

For his part, the ADB President expressed condolences over the loss of life and property in Vietnam due to storm No. 3; at the same time, he highly appreciated the Government's quick and effective response in responding to and overcoming the consequences of the storm; said that he had arranged a non-refundable aid of 2 million USD for Vietnam to overcome the consequences of the storm and hoped for quick disbursement.

The President also appreciated Vietnam's important role in Mekong sub-regional cooperation as one of the founding countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) Economic Cooperation mechanism with the support of ADB. With its coordinating role through the GMS Secretariat, ADB hopes that Vietnam will continue to actively participate in the GMS framework.

Assessing that Vietnam has great development potential, Mr. Masatsugu Asakawa said that with the role of "Asia's climate bank", ADB will continue to support and provide capital for Vietnam to implement development goals, especially energy transition, green transition, digital transformation, infrastructure development, and achieve the goal of net zero emissions by 2050; as well as support Vietnam's private sector, develop emerging fields such as semiconductors, supporting industries, and attract more capital and foreign investment into Vietnam.

Appreciating and recommending that Vietnam continue its efforts to adjust regulations in a more appropriate and simpler direction, he said that ADB hopes to continue receiving support and close direction from the Prime Minister to quickly implement projects.

The Prime Minister said he always welcomes Mr. Masatsugu Asakawa to visit Vietnam again, asks him to always support Vietnam in any position, and affirms that Vietnam will continue to cooperate well with his successor at ADB.