As Vietnam has become a middle income country, the UK is to stop direct aid to Vietnam, according to BBC News.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Vietnam will stop operations in Vietnam after 2016, when the bilateral agreement on cooperation development, signed in 2006, expires. However, the UK will continue assisting Vietnam in the next five years.

Since 1992, the UK has supplied non-refundable aid worth GBP 378 million to Vietnam through the DFID, focusing on millennium goals, growth, trade, governance and climate changes.

The Lao Dong (Labor) Newspaper cited Fiona Lappin, chief of DFID Vietnam that in the future, the UK would help Vietnam in primary education, rural transportation, safe water, environment and HIV/AIDS prevention.

The UK will also stop direct aid to 15 other countries, including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq and Russia.

A draft copy of a government review of its UK pound 7.8 billion overseas aid budget scheduled to be published this week also reveals assistance for India will be frozen.

The main reason was due to Vietnam and these countries have been considered as middle income countries by the World Bank and the British government will spend its aids for more poverty striken areas, such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, etc.

Thuy Chung