The Japanese government plans to donate 40 million yen (about 347,000 U.S. dollars) for Cambodia to hold disaster management training, an official told Xinhua by phone on Tuesday.

Some 20 million yen of the budget (about 173, U.S. dollars) will go to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport for training the students and teachers about disaster, and the rest to the National Disaster Management Committee for strengthening its personnel and institution at local levels, said Pov Samea, secretary general of the committee.

"The fund will help manage and train us about natural disasters in all provinces along the Mekong River, the Tonle Sap Lake and the drought areas which are easy to face natural disasters like flood," he said.

The training project will start in early 2007 in cooperation with the Japanese side, he added.

Source: Xinhua