The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and France have decided to provide two loans worth US$142 million to help rehabilitate infrastructure systems and livelihood opportunities and improve standard of living of rural people in the central region of Vietnam, state media and a source from the bank reported October 25.
The ADB will provide a US$90 million loan through its Asian Development Fund and France’s Agence Française de Développement will extend a US$52 million loan plus a US$1.3 million grant for Vietnam’s Integrated Rural Development Sector Project with an estimated cost of US$168.2 million, and the remaining is to be covered by the government of Vietnam.
The project is aimed to rehabilitate critical rural infrastructure, which have deteriorated over the past decades due to war, natural disasters, in order to boost agricultural productivity, employment opportunities and improve access to public services including health and education for local people in 13 central provinces, which are listed among the poorest regions in Vietnam now.
The ADB’s surveys identified that one of the main contributors to the high levels of poverty incidence in the region is the limited and deteriorating rural and coastal infrastructure, which curtailed access to markets, inputs such as irrigation water and public services.
Ahsan Tayyab, senior natural resources economist of ADB’s Southeast Asia Department said that poverty in Vietnam is a rural phenomenon, focused to a large extent on the more isolated central and northern regions of the country. It especially affects ethnic minorities.
“Poverty reduction efforts need to focus on these areas and the particular problems poor communities face,” Mr. Ahsan Tayyab emphasized.
“Further investment in rural infrastructure, especially in the rural areas of the central region where poverty levels remain high, is crucial to removing the constraints on productivity in the project area and in contributing to poverty reduction efforts,” said Mr. Tayyab.
Recently, Lekima made a landfall on the central region and left 82 deaths and nine missing and severely damaged the road systems. The damages were estimated to reach VND2 trillion (US$125 million).
Those living in rural areas now account for 70 per cent of Vietnam’s population. (LaborVNS, ADB)
Vietnamese
