Almost 68 percent of people living in rural areas in central Thua Thien-Hue province have gained access to clean water thanks to preferential loans from the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies.

The bank’s credit programme for clean water and rural environment sanitation has provided needy households with loans up to 12 million VND (552 USD) to dig wells or build hygienic toilets, water tanks and biogas systems which produce biogas from farming waste.

In 2014, more than 10,200 households borrowed a combined 107 billion VND (4.92 million USD) from the bank to build or upgrade approximately 7,100 clean water facilities and 500 sanitation facilities.

The programme has helped reduce water-borne disease rates, including eye and skin diseases, and decrease environmental pollution in rural areas.

The province targets 75 percent of rural residents accessing clean water by 2015.-VNA