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World Bank gives Burundi $43 mln for agriculture

by reuters | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thursday, 23 September 2010 09:35 GMT

BUJUMBURA, Sept 23 ( Reuters) - Burundi has received $43 million from the World Bank to support the development of the landlocked country's agricultural sector as it recovers from more than a decade of civil war.

The World Bank's country representative, Mercy Miang Tembon, said the grant would help fund the Agricultural Rehabilitation and Support project.

Burundi's economy is heavily dependent on agriculture revenues, in particular from the tea and coffee sectors.

"The chances of developing agriculture in Burundi are undeniable thanks to its political stability," Tembon told reporters on Wednesday evening.

The central African nation recently held a raft of local and national elections in relative peace, although most opposition parties boycotted the presidential and parliamentary ballots which followed district elections they said were rigged.

A spate of killings outside the capital Bujumbura this month, however, has sparked fears of a new bout of unrest. The government has blamed the macabre deaths, in which a number of bodies have been mutilated, on bandits.

Coffee is Burundi's top hard currency earner and employs some 800,000 smallholder farmers in the country of 8 million people. Coffee earnings have been forecast to leap to $81.6 million in the 2010/11 season from $16.7 million for the 2009/10 crop. [ID:nLDE6381O3] (Reporting by Sadi Niyungeko; Editing by Richard Lough/Ruth Pitchford)

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