The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations will receive 19 firefighting vehicles that will be distributed to six regions of Moldova and will serve about 1 million citizens. The vehicles will be bought with a grant of about 240 million lei provided by the Government of Japan, IPN reports.

Minister of Home Affairs Ana Revenco, in a press briefing on Friday, said that there was signed an economic cooperation agreement for initiating a project that is aimed at improving the freighting equipment. The given project will be implemented with the support of the Government of Japan that will offer a grant of 1.55 billion Japanese yen (about 240m lei). The money will be used to purchase in Japan and to deliver to Moldova 19 firefighting vehicles for the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations.

Japan’s Ambassador to Moldova Yoshihiro Katayama said the Government of Japan has supported the Republic of Moldova since the first years after the declaring of independence, offering it for the first time, in 1993, a lot of vaccine doses and medicine to the value of US$2 million. “Since then the Japanese development assistance projects have covered a multitude of areas, starting with agriculture and health protection, whose goal is to stimulate sustainable economic growth and improve the quality of life of Moldovans, and ending with the protection of the national heritage and of arts and culture,” stated the diplomat.

Yoshihiro Katayama noted that by training and fact-finding visits, the knowledge of the people of Japan is shared with hundreds of Moldovan experts and functionaries who continue to work for the benefit of society.