Latest Foreign Assistance Briefs

- Taiwan has granted $200,000 to a mushroom farming project in a bid to help improve the livelihoods of landmine victims in central Vietnam. Since 2009, Taiwan has been joining hands with the U.S.-based nonprofit organization Humpty Dumpty Institute to implement mushroom farming project, which provides funds, equipment and training for landmine victims and their families in the central province of Quang Tri. Taiwan, which is the main sponsor of the project, has aggressively played its role as a member of the international community and will continue doing so, said Kao Jen-chuan, director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, at the donation ceremony. Over the past three years, the project has assisted landmine survivors and their families in considerably raising incomes via mushrooms growing, said William Rouhana, chairman of the institute. In fact, thousands of unexploded bombs and grenades are still buried in the ground cross Vietnam. Since the Vietnam War ended in 1975, more than 40,000 people have died of the leftover explosives. (http://focustaiwan.tw May 24)

- More than 4,000 poor students in Hanoi, HCM City and Hai Phong Province were provided with scholarships, books and learning aids worth a total of $110,000 from the Parkson Education Care Fund. Run by the Parkson Viet Nam retail group, the fund gave the support on the occasion of the Action Month for Children. Earlier this week, the National Fund for Vietnamese Children signed a $150,000 agreement with energy company Chevron to upgrade five schools and provide 800 scholarships to students in the Mekong (Cuu Long) Delta. (Vietnam News May 24)

- Denmark's Global Competitiveness Facility for Vietnamese Enterprises (GCF) has provided grants of VND15 billion ($720,000) to five businesses in the Mekong Delta this year. They include VND3 billion to Thuy Son Investment JSC for an afforestation project under which 500 local families would plant keo lai (a hybrid between acacia mangium and acacia aunculiformis) trees on 1,500ha along the Ca Mau coast, Chiem Thang, advisor to GCF, said. Thuy Son will buy all the trees once they grow at VND850,000 per ton and grind them into pulp for export to countries like China, Denmark, and South Korea. Thuy Son is expected to export over 1,000 tons of pulp a year. As a grant facility of the Danish International Development Agency, GCF aims to enhance the competitiveness of non-public Vietnamese businesses in export-oriented business sectors in targeted provinces through better access to relevant business services and exposure to innovative business models. By 2013 GCF will provide VND216 billion ($10.3 million) to 50-60 non-State companies in Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen, Dak Lak, Lam Dong, and An Giang Provinces and Can Tho city. In the period 2006 - 2010, GCF also granted VND135 billion (nearly $6.5 million) to 52 local enterprises in Ha Tay, Nghe An, Khanh Hoa and Lam Dong provinces, generating 6,396 jobs for local people. (Vietnam News May 22)