By Julius Ewudo, ASEAN Region Representative
The OECD and the Government of Viet Nam today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen co-operation over the next five years.
The MoU, the Organisation’s first with Viet Nam, will frame future co-operation and pave the way for an eventual OECD Country Programme with Viet Nam. It was signed in Paris by OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann and Viet Nam Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son in the presence of Pham Minh Chinh, Prime Minister of Viet Nam.
The MoU aims to support Viet Nam’s reform efforts in areas where it is already working with the OECD, such as competition, investment, and tax policy. It will also support country-specific reports like the first OECD Economic Survey of Viet Nam, due in 2022, and can support the follow up of the OECD Clean Energy Finance and Investment Policy Review of Viet Nam, published earlier.
The Review finds that Viet Nam has been successful in facilitating high levels of investment in clean energy in recent years. The rapid growth of the solar market, however, has resulted in challenges with integrating variable renewable generation into the grid and changes to renewable procurement mechanisms are emerging sources of investor uncertainty. Adapting standardised contracts to minimise investor risk perceptions would support greater flows of capital and reduce the cost of financing clean energy infrastructure. The Review also outlines recommendations to help Viet Nam mobilise finance and investment to turn the energy sector carbon neutral, a prerequisite to reach its pledge of net zero emissions by 2050, made at COP26 this month.
“The clean energy sector will play a crucial role in making Viet Nam’s recovery sustainable and helping it to achieve its industrial targets,” Mr Cormann said of the Review. “Effective clean energy policies are increasingly a source of comparative advantage to attract foreign direct investment, particularly in the manufacturing sector, as international companies seek to make their supply chains carbon neutral.”
Viet Nam currently participates as a Bureau member of the OECD’s Southeast Asia Regional Programme, and hosted the 2016 OECD Southeast Asia Regional Forum in Hanoi.
