Chisinau, 28 July /MOLDPRES/ - Prime Minister Vlad Filat and British Ambassador to Moldova Keith Shannon today signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the UK government s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Moldova government. The document sees the earmarking of 1.5 million pounds (about 1.75 million euros) to implement infrastructure projects.

"The residents from the northern, central and southern Moldova will benefit from better roads, improved access to water and sewerage supply systems and increased opportunities in the business and tourism services fields," Ambassador Keith Shannon said following the ceremony of the memorandum's signing.

Prime Minister Vlad Filat said that "for Moldova, the support of regional development is of vital importance, while taking into account the fact that 70 per cent of the poor residents live in rural regions."

The prime minister said that Regional Development Councils and Agencies have been set up in three priority regions so far. They are seen in a law on regional development (North, Centre, South). Strategies of regional development were identified and priorities for each region were established. The government allocated 135 million lei for the Regional Development National Fund for 2010. The local authorities proposed 135 projects on regional development, and 89 ones were selected following a project tender. Forty five of these projects regard the construction of roads and aqueducts.

The 1.5 million pounds allocated by the United Kingdom will be used for a technical cooperation programme of DFID in the regional development area. The programme is implemented in concert with the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency with an overall budget of 3.4 million euros.