Strengthening financing and cooperation for sustainable infrastructure: Rémy Rioux visits Vietnam ahead of the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact

Announced by French President Emmanuel Macron at COP 27, the Summit for a New Financial Deal is scheduled to take place in Paris in June 2023, in collaboration with the G7, G20 and COP 28 presidencies, with the aim of rethinking the architecture of international financing for development, climate and biodiversity. Rémy Rioux's visit to Vietnam is part of his co-chairmanship of the working group on sustainable infrastructure financing, which aims to make concrete proposals and recommendations to unlock the billions of public and private investments needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Vietnam is known for its pioneering role in climate action. As one of the most vulnerable countries to its consequences and to natural disasters, it announced at COP 26 its commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and recently strengthened its ambitions by announcing a Just Energy Transition Partnership (JET-P) with a group of international partners, including France, to financially support this strategy. Under the JET-P, Vietnam commits to bringing forward the date of peak greenhouse gas emissions to 2030, reducing the maximum annual emissions from the power sector by 30%, limiting the maximum coal-fired power capacity to 30.2 GW and accelerating the development of renewable energy to 47% of power generation by 2030.

JET-P will mobilize an initial US$15.5 billion in public and private funding over the next three to five years, with France contributing €500 million. Over the next 12 months, Vietnam will work with partner countries to develop and adopt the resource mobilization plan that will enable the implementation of the strategy and funding. The establishment of a Just Energy Transition Secretariat is scheduled for April 2023 and marks a strong commitment by Vietnam to address the challenges of climate change.  In parallel, in the framework of a European consortium with KfW and EIB, and with JICA, led by AFD, the appraisal of the emblematic JET-P project of the Bac Ai pumped storage station (1200MW) will be conducted with EVN to strengthen the capacity of the transmission network.

Aware of this ambition and strengthened by AFD's historic relationship with Vietnamese partners, Rémy Rioux wanted to meet the country's authorities in order to fuel future discussions to be held in Paris in June. He met with Mr. Tran Hong Ha, Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Duong Quang Thanh Nhan, CEO of EVN and Mr. Le Ngoc Lam, CEO of BIDV . Since 1994, Vietnam has become a historical and important partner for AFD in Southeast Asia. Over the past 29 years, AFD has invested 2.4 billion euros in the country and intends to continue this commitment by supporting Vietnam in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and its climate commitments.

In addition, AFD has established a long-standing and trusted partnership with the Vietnamese Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MoNRE) on climate change social and economic impact assessments (GEMMES Program), as well as a fruitful partnership with Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) for the modernization of electricity grids and the development of renewable energy and storage solutions. AFD has been supporting EVN's investment plan since 2008 through non-sovereign loans and has financed 5 projects since 2017 for a total amount of 320 million euros.

At the end of his visit, Rémy Rioux said: "Vietnam has a strong ambition in terms of energy and low-carbon transition and I am honoured and proud of the partnership we have been building with the country's authorities and institutions for nearly 30 years. During my visit, I was able to confirm our commitment to provide the expertise and financing that Vietnam needs in the framework of the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). The experience of the Vietnamese government, EVN and EBID, which belongs to the same family of public banks as AFD, brought together in the framework of IDFC or FiCS, will be very useful in preparing the Summit for a new financial pact announced by the President of the French Republic next June in Paris."

Contacts 

Jean-Edouard Naslin : naslinje@afd.fr   |  Nguyen Ngoc Diep : nguyennd@afd.fr