The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been spending from a fund of 210 million USD on a water resources management project in the Mekong Delta, a workshop in Can Tho city heard on June 10.

Of that sum, 160 million USD has been loaned from the World Bank while the rest comes from Vietnam’s State budget.

Deputy Minister Hoang Van Thang said that the project, from 2011 to 2016, aims to improve the use of water resources in the Mekong Delta so as to harvest more profit from agricultural production, raise local living standards, and adopt climate change resilience measures.

In recent years, the project has upgraded a number of irrigation systems in seven of the 13 regional localities.

It has bettered cultivation methods by discouraging farmers’ use of fertilisers and pesticides, and studied the potential impact of aquaculture, particularly shrimp farming, on the environment.

It has also aided 60,000 households gain access to clean water while building new hygiene works for 10,000 others and 35 schools, the workshop heard.

The Mekong Delta Water Resources Management for Rural Development project is part of a credit agreement signed by the Vietnamese Government and the International Development Association in July 2011.-VNA