Four international organisations have pledged to provide around 1.5 million USD to south-central coastal Ninh Thuan Province in an effort to help reduce poverty in the locality from now until 2010.
The donation was announced at a conference to boost cooperation between Ninh Thuan and foreign organisations and NGOs held in Hanoi on June 12.
The sum will come from Oxfam, UK Action Aid, the Counterpart International of the US and the United Nations’ Population Fund (UNPFA).
Addressing the conference, the Ninh Thuan Provincial People’s Committee Chairwoman said the province had received 4.1 million USD in aid commitments from NGOs of the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Japan and the UK from 1992-2007. The province disbursed 2.9 million USD of the total value.
She said those projects effectively helped the province overcome difficulties, reduce poverty and develop socio-economy, especially isolated and remote areas. In addition, the projects also helped improve capacity of officials and local people.
At the conference, the provincial Trade and Investment Promotion Centre called for foreign investors to invest about 6.5 trillion VND (406.2 million USD) in the province’s tourism and processing industry for the next two years.
Projects waiting for investment include the ocean park, the Thai An Turtle Reserve, the Nam Cuong sand hill resort, the Mui Dinh adventure tourism area, a salt refining plant, a seafood-processing plant, a canned-food plant, a garment plant and a grape processing plant.
Ninh Thuan covers 3,360sq.m with a population of nearly 600,000. The province’s per capita GDP was 6.6 million VND (415 USD) in 2007.
