Vietnam's poorest area gets 17 mln euro EU grant
HANOI - The European Union on Friday granted 17 million euro to help 40,000 people in Vietnam's poorest area improve their life, officials said. An EU-funded 5-year project is designed to build roads in northern provinces of Cao Bang and Bac Kan, raise agricultural crop outputs and provide poor families with access to credit and business skill, an Agriculture Ministry official said.
"The project will help deal with the most pressing issues of the people in the two provinces," Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat said after signing the fund with Ambassador Markus Cornaro, head of the European Commission delegation in Vietnam. While Vietnam's per capital income is around $500 per year, each of the 40,000 beneficiaries from this project earn between $60 and $95 per year, many of them ethnic minority groups, officials of the two provinces told Reuters.
Aid-reliant Vietnam, which has 8 percent of its 82 million people living in poverty, said the rate would rise to 26.7 percent if the government approves a new poverty line using international standard for the 2006-2010 period. The EU is among Vietnam's biggest donors along with Japan and the World Bank. In December donors raised aid pledges for 2005 to $3.4 billion from $2.8 billion for 2004.
Reuters - April 8, 2005
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