Cambodia receives over 500 mln USD of international aid

Cambodia receives over 500 mln USD of international aid 11:18, July 13, 2007 Cambodia received 594 million U. S. dollars of international aid in 2006, compared with 610 million U.S. dollars in 2005, local media reported on Friday. The aid basically met the demand of the national developments although there were still lots of improvements to be done in the use of the donated money, a local newspaper the Commercial News quoted the government's efficiency report about the international aid in 2006 as saying. Among the aid, 110 million U.S. dollars went to the health sector, 93 million U.S. dollars to executive management, 71.5 million U.S. dollars to education, 53 million U.S. dollars to transportation and 45.5 million U.S. dollars to rural development, it said. However, the report said that the project execution accounted for 46.5 percent of the aid, while the technologic cooperation 46. 2 percent, almost two times higher than other countries receiving international donations. This percentage showed that the Cambodian government needed to enhance its participation in the technological cooperation and improve its efficiency, it added. Almost one third of the kingdom's 14 million population live in poverty and half of the government's annual budget used to be met by international donors. At the donor countries' meeting just concluded here in June, the participants promised to provide 689 million U.S. dollars of aid for Cambodia in 2007. Source: Xinhua