Japan to cut foreign aid in general account for 12th straight yr+

TOKYO, Dec. 24 Kyodo -
Japan decided Friday to cut its overall foreign aid by 7.4 percent from a year
earlier to 572.7 billion yen in the fiscal 2011 general account budget,
registering the 12th straight year of decrease.
But the whole volume of Japan's official development assistance, including aid
financed by special accounts and contributions to some international aid
organizations, will mark an increase of around 1 percent from a year before to
1.93 trillion yen in calendar 2011.
Of the 572.7 billion yen allocated for ODA in the budget plan for the next
fiscal year starting April 1, the amount of grant aid came to 151.9 billion
yen, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier, and that of technical cooperation
projects dropped 1.6 percent to 145.7 billion yen.
The Foreign Ministry will handle the largest share of the total ODA budget at
417 billion yen, followed by the Finance Ministry at 94.7 billion yen and the
Ministry of Education, Cultural, Sports, Science and Technology at 28.7 billion
yen.
ODA consists mainly of grants, technical cooperation and low-interest yen loans
to developing countries, as well as contributions to international
organizations.
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told reporters he is satisfied with the fiscal
2011 ODA budget as it includes spending for aid projects that would promote
exports of Japan's infrastructure technologies.
''We've been promoting foreign policies to boost Japan's economic gains and
we'd like to use the ODA budget to spur our economic growth as well as to
fulfill international responsibilities'' in areas such as supporting Afghan
reconstruction efforts and alleviating poverty, Maehara said.
To support reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, the government allocated
about 35 billion yen as part of its pledge to provide up to $5 billion, or
about 450 billion yen, in civilian aid to the conflict-ravaged country over a
five-year period from 2009.
In a bid to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals on reducing poverty,
which were set in 2000 for achievement by 2015, the fiscal 2011 budget set
aside 15.9 billion yen to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria.
Japan helped to found the fund in 2002 and Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged in
September at the United Nations that Tokyo will contribute $800 million to the
fund over five years.
Tokyo's contributions to such U.N. agencies as the U.N. Development Program,
the World Food Program and the U.N. Children's Fund marked increases from a
year earlier in the fiscal 2011 budget.
The fiscal 2011 ODA budget also includes 1 billion yen to boost Japanese
language education abroad, which covers spending to offer Japanese courses to
up to 400 prospective nurses and caregivers in Indonesia and the Philippines
who will come to Japan under bilateral economic partnership arrangements.
The 1 billion yen budget will also cover programs to bolster Japan-U.S.
cultural and people-to-people exchanges by sending young Japanese language
teachers to Los Angeles and New York.
Meanwhile, the government approved expenses to launch three new diplomatic
missions abroad.
Japan will open an embassy in Djibouti, where Japan's Self-Defense Forces have
been dispatched for antipiracy operations, and establish a new mission in Xian,
the capital of Shaanxi Province in China, and the Jakarta-based secretariat of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in fiscal 2011.
==Kyodo
2010-12-24 22:40:55


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