Foreign donors pledged on December 4 official development assistance totaling $8.063 billion for Vietnam next year, compared with $5.014 billion for this year. The figure was announced at the World Bank's Consultative Group for Vietnam's two-day meeting that began Thursday in Hanoi. The meeting has attracted the participation of nearly 50 foreign donor countries and organizations. Among the top donors are the World Bank, which will give $2.498 billion, the government of Japan with $1.640 billion, the Asian Development Bank with $1.479 billion and the European Union with $1.082 billion. Foreign aid is one of the major sources of dollars for Vietnam, beside exports, foreign investment and remittances. The government said earlier this week that the total disbursement of development assistance in Vietnam is expected to be $3 billion in 2009, compared with a target of $1.9 billion initially set for the year. The disbursement in the first 11 months was $1.99 billion, the government said, without giving comparative figures. International donors started providing development assistance to Vietnam from 1993. Since then, their pledges have totaled $42.5 billion, and nearly $25 billion of which has been disbursed, according to government figures.
