Over 1,000 Chinese public servants and professionals will travel to Europe by the end of the year to be trained in helping modernize China's underdeveloped northeastern and western regions.

China's Ministry of Personnel and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) jointly launched the three-year training program on Monday.

Public servants and professionals from the northeast and west will go to Britain and Italy to study laws and regulations on personnel resources and learn from the two countries’ experiences in developing modern agriculture and manufacturing.

The UNDP provided US$1 million for the program which carries a total investment of US$2.5 million, according to sources with the government of Daqing, a city of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, where the launching ceremony was held.

This is the second time that the two sides have cooperated in training personnel for China's underdeveloped areas.

Over 1,200 public servants and professionals from 12 provinces and autonomous regions in western China participated in training programs and were sent abroad from 2002 to 2004 to study environmental protection, energy efficiency, and the prevention and treatment of desertification.

The Chinese government initiated the strategy to develop its vast western regions in 2000, targeting 12 underdeveloped areas, to narrow the gap with the fast-growing east.

Major tasks include improving infrastructure, ecological and environmental protection, and healthcare, and promoting education.

The central government also launched a strategy to rejuvenate its northeast industrial bases in 2003. The strategy is aimed at developing new and essential growth areas of the national economy.

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2006)