NAY PYI TAW, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar's Union Parliament on Wednesday passed a motion to accept a loan of 40.5 million U.S. dollars from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to be used in implementing projects of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, parliament sources said.
The loan is to fund the Climate Friendly Agribusiness Value Chains Sector Project for a total of 14 townships in Central Myanmar's Magway, Mandalay and Sagaing regions.
The project will allow the production of agricultural products that meet the ISO 17025 standards, which will help penetrate the foreign markets.
The parliament had earlier agreed on Monday to receive a soft loan of 30 million euros (about 40 million U.S. dollars) from Italy to be used by the same ministry to support electrification of the entire country through a preliminary electrification system in villages far away from the national grid.
The soft loan will allow provision of electricity in the form of solar home system and mini-grid system to the hardly accessible Chin state and its neighboring areas under a pre-electrification system for villages out of reach of the national power grid with a projected outreach to 96,500 households in 1,015 villages.
That 30 million euros' interest-free loan was offered with a grace period of 18 years and repayment period of 10 years starting 2036-2037 fiscal year.
