ESTONIA HANDS OUT EUR 511,000 IN FOREIGN AID IN 2004

Baltic News Service
December 24, 2004

TALLINN, Dec 24 — Estonia gave international development and foreign
aid to the tune of eight million kroons (EUR 511,000) from the state
budget in the outgoing year, mostly to support eastern and southeastern
Europe and southern Caucasus.

Estonia handed out a total of more than 1.5 million kroons in
humanitarian aid through international organizations, the daily
Postimees reported.

So Estonia supported victims of the Beslan hostage drama, civil war
refugees of the Sudanese Darfur area, earthquake victims in Iran
and children in the Russian Pskov region who were given hepatitis A
vaccine, Foreign Ministry press secretary Anneli Kimber reported.

Kimber added that 6.5 million kroons was spent on development aid,
which consisted in the transfer of material aid as well as technical
knowhow.

“So we have invited to Estonia public servants from Georgia, Uzbekistan
and Ukraine to share with them eurointegration experience, to inform
them how to negotiate with the World Trade Organization, and have
helped Armenia develop its emergency centers and communications
network,” Kimber said.

She said Estonia was sharing its experience in the sphere of public
administration, institutional development, development of the
information society, accession to international organizations and
environmental protection.

In the transfer of its knowhow Estonia mainly centers on areas where
processes similar to the reforms carried out in Estonia lie ahead or
are already in progress.

Next year the Foreign Minstry has set its foreign aid target at
the same level as this year, Kimber said. She said the main target
countries would be the same as previously, the most important of them
being Georgia and Ukraine.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress