Grain Producer Benefits from WB LoansEast China's Anhui Province, a major grain producer, has benefited a great deal from loans by the World Bank (WB). One of the first Chinese provinces to use WB funds, Anhui has received a total of 636 million U.S. dollars of loans from the bank since 1982.The capital has mainly been spent on agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, health, education and environmental protection in 16 prefectures and cities. One major project, which involved 117 million U.S. dollars of WB loans, was carried out in the northern part of the province, to improve 320,000 hectares of low-yield farmland. Another project, an irrigation and drainage pumping station in the Chaohu Lake valley, helped protect local people from a severe flood in 1991. An official with the provincial government said that WB loans have made up for a shortage of funding in infrastructure in Anhui. |
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