Dear Mr. Chairman, 
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the recent years, Vietnam is known to the world as a country of reform and integration with significant initial successes in socioeconomic development, hunger eradication and poverty reduction. The number people living in poverty reduced by more than a half in 10 years from 1990 to 2000 is a significant achievement of the reform process, including reform in development cooperation, a result of the joint efforts by the government, the authorities at different administrative levels, the domestic population at large and the international community, especially the donors' community. Vietnam delegation therefore highly appreciate that this conference has put emphasis on promotion and improvement on effectiveness of development aid to take the world through challenges and to successfully implement the development goals as set forth at the Millennium Summit.

During the 1990s, Vietnam successfully implemented the "1991-2000 socioeconomic stabilization and development strategy". At present, Vietnam is proceeding with implementation of the 10-year socioeconomic development strategy 2001-2010 and the 5 year socioeconomic development plan 2001-2005. During development and implementation of these socioeconomic development strategy and plan, hunger eradication and poverty reduction has always been linked closely with development and growth and vice - versa.

The fast economic growth with the averaged GDP growth of 7% per annum in 10 years of 1990-2000 together with the appropriate policy of distribution of income have constituted a decisive element for the success of hunger eradication and poverty reduction process in Vietnam. The high economic growth itself has created more jobs and generated higher income for the poor.

The successes in development and fight against poverty is the result of Vietnam's determination to reform and pro-active approach to economic integration, promotion to build a market economy with economic structure that enables each sector, each region and each economic participant to take full advantage of their own comparative advantage to develop effectively; promote, thus allowing mobilization of national resources, domestic and external for development investments.

During development and process of poverty reduction, Vietnam has received significant and effective development aid from international community. We highly appreciate and would like to express our sincere thanks to such valuable assistance and cooperation. Thanks to the close coordination between Vietnamese Government and its local authorities with overseas governments and international organizations, the development resources have been effectively utilized, focusing on priority areas of socioeconomic development in Vietnam.

However, Vietnam is still facing with many challenges in hunger eradication and poverty reduction efforts given that GDP per capita is just a mere USD450 per annum and there are yet a big number of people with income of just USDI a day. To overcome such challenges, Vietnam adopts a policy to, on the one hand, mobilize internal resources, taken as the decisive resource and on the other hand, expand and improve the effectiveness of international cooperation, including foreign direct investment (FDI), official development assistance as well as international trade.

Internal resources mobilized include not only government finance, but also and more importantly the private finance as well as contribution from the local community benefiting from the development assistance.

To attract foreign direct investments, Vietnam continues to improve the investment climate to be more open, more attractive and more competitive. To expand international trade, Vietnam is actively negotiating for assertion to WTO and hence requests the support from countries around the world as expressed in the Monterrey Consensus.

We would like to call for more official development assistance (ODA) from international donors community. The 10 years of development cooperation (ODA) have left us with many valuable experiences i.e.: the Government together with the donors must correctly identify the objective and policy for ODA which must be kept in line with the objectives of the socioeconomic development strategy of Vietnam; a sound legal framework for effective management and use of ODA must be completed, thus harmonizing the procedures of Vietnam and the donors.

Distinguished guests, 
Ladies and Gentlemen,

The actual development assistance and poverty reduction in Vietnam have reflected that the observation and recommendations at this Monterrey Conference are essentially right appropriate. Vietnamese delegation welcomes and highly appreciates the consensus reached at the Conference.

We agree and share the views with many delegates at the Conference on the need to have more concrete commitment for rapid increase in financial resources to meet the demand for reaching the Millennium Goals.

We also agree with the proposals for improvement of effective use of development aid based on adjustment of fund allocation to the right target group, keeping in line with the needs and the development strategy of recipient countries, avoiding imposition and honoring respect for ownership of recipient countries, since we believe that as assistance from developed countries to developing countries is for a better world and for themselves.

Thank you for your attention.