Yunus asks Kan for Japanese support for plan to ease poverty

TOKYO, July 20 Kyodo -
Nobel Peace Prize winner and president of Grameen Bank Muhammad Yunus met with
Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Tuesday and sought the Japanese government's
support for his plan to ease poverty and other social problems through business
activities.
Kan promised the Bangladeshi economist, who won the peace prize in 2006, that
Japan will study whether it can make any contribution to the fund established
under his ''social business'' concept, in which investors and company owners
cover the cost of achieving such objectives as providing healthcare to the poor
while making sufficient profits to sustain their operations, government sources
said.
Yunus is known for developing the concepts of microcredit and microfinance and
extending loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for normal commercial bank
lending.
Kan praised and agreed with Yunus' efforts, the sources said after their
meeting at the prime minister's office in Tokyo.
==Kyodo