Vietnam Receives 51.5 Million USD from World Bank for Carbon Credits

Tran Quang Bao, director of the ministry's Department of Forestry, said 80 percent of the sum had been distributed to six north central provinces and the remaining 20 percent would be distributed to localities in the next one to two months.

The localities will allocate the money to people and communities that signed contracts for projects to protect forests.

Vietnam has 14.79 million hectares of forest areas with a land coverage rate of 42 percent. The forestry production value grows stably at a rate of 4.6 percent with revenue from environmental protection services being close to 11 trillion Vietnamese dong (about 440 million dollars), according to the ministry.

Last year, Vietnam, for the first time, sold more than 10 million carbon credits for over 50 million dollars, ranking among 60 countries worldwide with the highest capacity for carbon trade.

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