HA NOI, VIET NAM: The United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) will give the northern provinces of Lao Cai and Phu Tho 500,000 USD each to develop their transport systems sustainably and comprehensively.

An agreement to this effect was signed in Ha Noi on Mar. 9 by Nguyen Thanh Do, Deputy Director of the Foreign Finance Department under the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Simon Lucas, DFID representative.

The one-year financing programme was part of Rural Transport Project III, jointly funded by the DFID and the World Bank. It will be implemented on a trial basis in 2005.

The DFID has also pledged to finance other research projects aimed at improving the capability of managing and mapping out the transport and communications strategies of all localities nationwide.

According to the MoF, the financing programme is in accord with the Vietnamese Government's Strategy on Development and Poverty Reduction, which considers a transport system the backbone of development and poverty alleviation in Viet Nam.

Source: Vietnam Agency

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