Hanoi - Vietnamese officials said Monday that government representatives will sign an agreement tomorrow resuming aid from Japan to Vietnam.

Japan had suspended all aid to Vietnam in December due to a corruption scandal on a Japanese-funded transportation project.

The agreement will provide Vietnam with official development assistance (ODA) loans worth 83.2 billion yen (850 million dollars) for fiscal 2009, said Nguyen Xuan Tien, deputy director of the Ministry of Planning and Investment's department of foreign economic relations.

Tien said the agreement would be signed by Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc and Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Sakaba Mitsuo.

The aid includes loans for four major infrastructure projects: an urban transit railway, water drainage, and road improvement in Hanoi, and an environmental improvement program in Haiphong.

"These loans are very significant for Vietnam's economy, not just in the short term by creating jobs, but for long-term economic growth, because they focus on infrastructure," Tien said.

Bit Dang Ngoc Hanh, deputy director of Vietnam's Institute for Economics and Water Resource Management, which has received aid from Japan in the past, was skeptical.

"All ODA projects have their own purposes," Hanh said. "When they (Japan) give Vietnam ODA, they also benefit, for example, by selling their equipment to Vietnam."

Japan suspended ODA to Vietnam in December, saying the government had not cooperated sufficiently in investigating a million-dollar kickback scandal for Japanese-funded road construction.

The head of the project, the East-West Highway in Ho Chi Minh City, allegedly received at least 800 thousand dollars in bribes from executives of the Japanese consulting firm Pacific Consultants International.

Several company officials are serving prison terms in Japan over the scandal. On February 11, the top Vietnamese official involved, Huynh Ngoc Si, was arrested along with his deputy.

Japan is the largest ODA provider to Vietnam, having given the country 15 billion dollars since 1992. (dpa)