European Union will increase their assistance to Bhutan

European Union will increase their assistance to Bhutan by more than double. The EU Ambassador to Bhutan, Joao Cravinho, said they are pleased with the outcomes of their developmental assistance to Bhutan.

 “I have also been able to tell Bhutanese authorities that EU will not only maintain the support but also increase substantially.

Joao Cravinho said EU is coming to the end of financial cycles. “We have seven financial cycles. This new financial cycle starts from Jan 2014. From the new financial cycle we have decided to increase significantly increase our developmental assistance to Bhutan.”

The EU will not only be maintaining their support in fields like renewable energy, agriculture and good governance but they will also focus on new initiatives. The Ambassador said that they are keen to support Bhutan on the challenges faced by the country.  He said that they will be supporting in fields like capacity building of Local Government, mechanism for certification of organic products among others. The Ambassador said that during the next few months they will be sending two different missions to Bhutan to study and work on the programmes.

“Our focus will be in helping Bhutan to use non perishable sources of energy which must go hand in hand in developmental activities,” said Joao Cravinho.

He said as a country becomes more developed as in case of Bhutan there is a challenge to intensify the use of fossils fuels. “This will be problematic as Bhutan already faces current import deficit as all fossils fuels are imported. Yet Bhutan is the country where production of electric energy is to increase a lot.”

He said this is the area they are interested working with Bhutan on this.