Receiving EVNNPT’s Chairman of Management Board Dang Phan Tuong and the mission,
KfW representatives include Ms. Christine Heimburger – General Director in Eastern
Asia and Pacific Asia, Mr. Patric Shirzadi – Manager of Asian Energy Department,
Mr. Jochen Meyer-Lohmann – Project Manager, Ms. Charlotte Berkenfeld – Energy
Specialist. Ms. Christine Heimburger was
happy to receive and work with the mission at KfW headquarters.
EVNNPT
mission had a discussion with KfW leaders
Ms. Christine revealed that Vietnam
is an important customer of KfW, in which priority is given to the development of
Vietnam’s energy sector. Especially, KfW highly appreciated the implementation
of the 500kV Son La – Lai Chau transmission line and expansion of 500kV Son La
substation – the 1st project implemented so fast up to now.
She also shared with the mission on
the establishment of KfW. It was established in 1948 in order to reconstruct
Germany after the 2nd World War. KfW has a headquarters in Frankfurt and other
subsidiaries in Berlin, Praha and 80 representative offices in various
countries. In 2014, KfW was rated AAA and
ranked as the biggest bank in Germany. The main tasks of KfW are to
reconstruct, support the domestic enterprises as well as provide international financing.
In recent years, KfW provide lots of fund for industries, energy sector, construction,
infrastructure development in the developing countries. Vietnam is provided
with KfW fund as the 3rd largest in Asia, behind China and India.
To begin the discussion, EVNNPT’s Chairman of Management Board Dang
Phan Tuong raised the purposes of meeting is to discuss progress of the ongoing
KfW-funded projects and propose the new funded projects. Chairman Tuong
expressed thanks to Ms. Christines Heimburger and colleagues for the support so
far, especially for the USD 87 million in funding the 500kV Son La – Lai Chau
transmission line and expansion of 500kV Son La substation project. This is the
1st project funded to EVNNPT by KfW
since EVNNPT’s establishment, which
marks the promising preliminary mutual cooperation results.
The 500kV Son La – Lai Chau
transmission line and expansion of 500kV Son La substation project is a big
project, of national importance. The quick arrangement on fund and project
deployment is remarkable, which have
been gained by the high efforts by EVNNPT
and KfW. The contract on materials and equipment have been signed, but
disbursement of KfW fund has not been done. Therefore, disbursement of
commercial credit is being used, then retroactive will be applied after the
procedures on KfW fund disbursement are completed. EVNNPT is trying to finalize the domestic procedures in order to make
optimum disbursement of KfW fund before December 31st 2016.
The mission has also updated
progress of Tranche 3 under Multi Financial Facility (MFF), in which KfW will
be co-financer of project, together with ADB. At present, EVNNPT is under finalization of
documents for project appraisal as required by KfW. In coming time, KfW’s
consultants will work with EVNNPT and
its subsidiaries to appraise the subprojects so that Tranche 3 can be signed by
end 2015. Out of EUR 160 million fund committed by KfW, EVNNPT has arranged to use about EUR 65 million.
Therefore, to use over remaining EUR 90 million, Chairman Dang Phan Tuong
proposed KfW to consider funding the transmission line projects connected to
power plants because most of EVNNPT’s
remaining projects are the ones connected to power plants and other projects
have low investment costs.
In fact, EVNNPT has an annual investment demand from USD 800 million to USD 1 billion
from now to 2020, EVNNPT has to
seek finance from various sources of fund: ODA fund, bilateral fund, domestic
commercial credit, etc, in which most of fund come from ODA projects. Therefore,
KfW fund is very valuable, contributing to support EVNNPT to complete its huge tasks on investment in transmission grid
assigned by the Government.
KfW leader - Ms. Christine
Heimburger has agreed upon the views shared by EVNNPT mission and confirmed to retain a close cooperation with EVNNPT so that the project will be
implemented effectively. She committed to do appraisal of new projects right
after the new projects are proposed by EVNNPT.
KfW expressed its willingness in
providing the technical assistance on capacity building based on EVNNPT’s proposal.
Before saying goodbye to KfW
leaders, Chairman Dang Phan Tuong revealed the satisfactory on the gained
results and hope for a closer and better cooperation in future between the 2
sides.
EVNNPT
mission had a photo taken with KfW leaders