The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) will assist China to push ahead with the petty-loan project it finances, in an effort to help more poor Chinese farmers get rid of poverty.
The IFAD has provided 16 million US dollars worth of preferential loans to Guizhou Province in southwest China since December 1998, which were used as petty loans for impoverished farmer households to develop agricultural and other sideline products, said Erik Martens, who is in charge of IFAD's loans to China.
In a meeting with Mo Shiren, vice-governor of Guizhou, Monday, Martens expressed the hope that the petty-loan project would be linked with other poverty relief projects supported by international assistance and the Chinese government so as to gain the best results.
Mo said the provincial government attaches great importance to the project and has issued 5.5 million yuan in petty loans to 1, 800 rural households in ten counties. The farmers involved have begun to make profits.
Martens and his party also held talks with other provincial government officials and visited the farmers receiving petty loans.
(Xinhua 06/05/2001)
