On Sept.13,2006, Mr. Wang Yue, Director General of CICETE attended the inception workshop and signed on the MOU for increasing budget for the project “ Promoting Innovative and Sustainable Science and Technology support to Poverty Reduction in Rural China ” in Urumqi. Mr. Liu Yanhua Vice minister, Mr. Khalid Malik UNDP Resident Representative, Mr. Jin Nuo Assistant to Chairman of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region as well as all relevant officials in charge of TTF work from Ministry of Personnel and Ministry of Science and Technology participated in the above-captioned meeting. A press conference for domestic and international media was held after the event.

The “ Promoting Innovative and Sustainable Science and Technology support to Poverty Reduction in Rural China ” project was signed in Beijing on April.20, 2006 with US$1 million financed by UNDP and US$ 3 million financed by MOST as government cost sharing. The project is aimed at piloting and demonstrating different TTF models in 15 provinces (municipality or autonomous regions), increasing farmer's income and reducing poverty through the innovative TTF initiative as well as exploring the sustainable way of TTF development under the market economy. In consideration of the importance of the project, CICETE, UNDP and MOST have reached an agreement on the increase of US$3.4 million for the project, of which US$480,000 will be from UNDP, US$520,000 will be contributed by STORA ENSO as third-party cost sharing and US$2,400,000 will be contributed by MOST as government cost sharing for the project. Therefore the total budget amounts to US$7.4 million.

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