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ADB
to provide 500 million dollars to combat food crisis
MADRID,
May 6, 2008 (AFP) - The Asian Development Bank will provide
500 million dollars (320 million euros) in immediate assistance
to member nations hit hardest by soaring food prices, the
head of the bank announced Tuesday.
ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said the bank would also double
lending for agriculture in 2009 to 2.0 billion dollars to
combat the crisis, which he has warned puts more than a billion
people in the region at risk of malnutrition.
“I am pleased to announce that ADB will provide 500 million
dollars as immediate budgetary support to the hardest hit
countries so that they can bring food to the tables of the
vulnerable, poor and needy,” he said.
“This money will be made available to cushion the impact
of rising fiscal burden due to rising food prices,” Kuroda
told a news conference at the end of a four-day annual meeting
of the bank in Madrid.
“We will also double our lending to Agricultural and
Natural Resources, including rural infrastructure, to over
2.0 billion dollars over the next one year.”
In 2008, the ADB plans to lend one billion dollars to the
sector.
The countries that received the aid would be announced later,
he added.
“A few countries requested and showed some interest in
getting such kind of immediate support,” the Japanese
national said.
“We are engaged in discussions. In coming weeks we will
be able to agree on terms and conditions and will be able
to release the names of the countries and the amounts of assistance
to each country.”
Kuroda has warned that the food problem could cut into decades
of economic gains in the Asia-Pacific region, home to two-thirds
of the world’s poor and where spending on food accounts
for 60 percent of total average expenditure.
Japanese Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga has warned the
crisis could provoke social unrest in the region.
Prices for the benchmark Thai variety of rice, a food staple
across much of Asia, are at about 1,000 dollars a tonne, up
threefold from the last ADB annual meeting held in Japan one
year ago.
Kuroda has blamed the crisis on reduced supplies and increased
demand, along with the sharp depreciation of the US dollar
and trade restrictions by some countries.
On the eve of the conference, donors pledged 11.3 billion
dollars (7.3 billion euros) by 2012 to help the bank tackle
poverty and the food crisis, a 60 percent increase over the
previous four-year period.
The pledge “is a vote of confidence in ADB’s ability
to effectively provide these countries with the needed assistance,”
Kuroda said.
The food crisis has largely overshadowed other issues at the
meeting, such as its “Strategy 2020” long-term plan.
Kuroda said the plan envisages “inclusive growth, environmentally
sustainable growth and regional cooperation integration.”
Based in Manila, the ADB is owned by its 67 member countries
-- 48 from the Asia-Pacific region, and 19 from elsewhere
around the world.
The next ADB annual meeting is to be held in Bali, Indonesia,
in May 2009.
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