(HANOI) - The World Bank Wednesday announced a health project for poor ethnic minorities in remote Vietnamese mountain regions, backed with an 11.45 million euro (17.96 million dollar) EU grant.

The project aims to improve maternal and reproductive health care and combat malnutrition and childhood illnesses in the country's northern uplands and central highlands, the World Bank said in a statement.

The European Commission had provided an 11.45 million euro grant, while Vietnam's communist government was providing 1.4 million euros in counterpart funding, it said.

The project will target some three million people in the mountainous northwestern Lai Chau, Son La and Dien Bien provinces near the Lao border, and in the central provinces of Kon Tum and Gia Lai, which border Cambodia.

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