South Korea has completed an official development assistance project worth $4.7 million for El Salvador, which will benefit hundreds of farmers and their families in the northern part of the Central American country, the South Korean ODA agency said Thursday.
Under the farmer-empowerment project which started in 2013, the Korea International Cooperation Agency built irrigation and solar energy generation systems as well as a community center for farmers in El Porvenir, Santa Ana, according to the KOICA.
South Korean volunteers arriving in El Salvador. (Yonhap)
The construction will help pump agricultural water for some 200 hectares of farmland in the region even during the dry season, enabling farmers to produce rice, watermelon and sugar cane as well as an assortment of vegetables throughout the year, the KOICA said.
"The project is expected to directly benefit 70 farmers and 350 family members while indirectly helping some 300 other vegetable and seed sellers and agricultural machinery repair shops, contributing to regional development and job creation in the area," it also said.
In the course of the four-year project, some 500 residents of El Porvenir have also been employed for construction, it added.
In a ceremony held on Thursday in El Salvador to mark the project's completion, President Salvador Sanchez Ceren expressed appreciation in his celebratory speech, the agency said.
"It is a very meaningful project that could simultaneously solve the two problems of climate change and agricultural productivity," the president was quoted as saying. He said he plans to apply the development model nationwide.
The KOICA said it has provided a total of $40.5 million worth of ODA to the Central American country up through the end of last year and plans to extend an additional $2.94 million in ODA this year. (Yonhap)