Japan to Fund Vietnam $22M to Cope with Natural Disasters

The Japanese government has pledged to fund JPY2 billion ($22 million) for Vietnam to deal with climate change-caused natural disasters, the Tai Nguyen Moi Truong newspaper reported July 1. Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Mitsuo Sakaba and Vietnamese Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen signed an agreement on the aid June 30. The program will focus on upgrading early warning systems of rains and floods in the basins of Thao and Lo Rivers to get accurate and timely meteorological forecasts, the newspaper added. Addressing the signing ceremony, Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen highly spoke of the Japan-funded project, hoping that such program will be expanded to other river basins in the coming times. Natural disasters left 500 dead and missing in Vietnam and caused losses of VND23 trillion ($1.2 billion), equaling to 2% of the country’s GDP in 2009. The Vietnamese government has already approved a national target program to prevent and mitigate natural disasters by 2020.