Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Chairman Le Hoang Quan yesterday said that the city would get VND23 trillion (US$1.08 billion) in loans from international banks to speed up progress of anti-flooding projects in the city.

At a meeting with authorized agencies on measures to deal with flooding in the time ahead, Mr. Quan said that the city and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have implemented an irrigation plan to cope with high-tide triggered flooding in the city.

However the ministry’s capital source is limited. Accordingly, the city would get loans to speed up the projects’ progress, he said.

At the meeting, Chairman Quan instructed the Steering Center of the Urban Flood Control Program HCMC to examine the city’s anti-flooding plan as well as projects to report their progress and situation to the people’s committee.

The center should work with departments of agriculture and rural development and transport, and districts to step up the embankment fortifying project on the left of Saigon River.

They should concentrate on building tide control drains as per project 1547 which the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has approved, he said.

SGGP