ADB signs green loan to build wind farms in Vietnam

MANILA, May 29 (Xinhua): The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed a US$116-million green loan to build and operate three wind farms in Vietnam.

The Manila-based bank said the project in Quang Tri province in the North Central Coast region will increase Vietnam's wind power capacity by 30 percent, helping the Southeast Asian country meet the rapidly growing demand for energy.

The project will generate an average of 422 gigawatt-hours of electricity and avoid an average of 162,430 tons of CO2 emissions annually, said ADB.

The ADB said the loan is part of a green loan project financing package arranged and syndicated by the ADB.

"It is ADB's first financing of a wind power project in Vietnam and is certified by the Climate Bonds Initiative," the ADB said in a statement.

Meanwhile, earlier on Saturday (May 29), Vietnam has detected a new hybrid Covid-19 strain between the variants first identified in Britain and India, according to local media VnExpress on Saturday.

According to the Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, the hybrid strain could spread very fast in the air, and the Vietnamese health ministry will announce this new strain on the world gene map.

The two mutated strains first identified in Britain and India are currently the most common variants among the new Covid-19 cases in Vietnam in the ongoing infection wave. - Xinhua