Steadfast in its quest to mitigate poverty, unemployment, and to let the business climate of Myanmar keep buzzing with further opportunities, developments and investments, the World Bank has pushed the time frame of its Aid-Programme by two years to 2019, from the initially frozen 2017.

The Senior Economic Advisor of World Bank, Mr. Sjamsu Rahadja stated, “Since 2015, we have provided $3 billion in aid to Myanmar. We have made the commitment to provide aid for two more years after the agreement with State Counsellor and the Ministry of Finance and Planning.”

Driven by its primary goal of alleviating poverty, generating job opportunities and enhancing human capacity, the World Bank’s activities for the extended period involve – developing irrigated farmland spanning 10,000 hectares, electricity access to more than 3 million people and building bridges for connectivity in rural areas. In addition to this, scholarship programmes, preparing Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Report for Oil, Mining and Gas Sectors, are also on the World Bank’s task-list aimed for 2019.

The Public Relations Officer of World Bank Myanmar, Mr. U Kya Soe Lin stated, “To be successful or unsuccessful, the project depends on the public, the beneficiary of the project. By receiving feedback from the public, we will keep working on the project and know what to make our priorities.”

The World Bank’s list of activities also includes disbursal of loan worth $500 million to private sector corporates.