ASEAN nations, China urge Japan to maintain aid level
ASEAN nations, China urge Japan to maintain aid level
Ryan Nakashima, Agence France-Presse, Tokyo
Foreign ministers from East Asian nations urged Japan on Monday to maintain the level of its strings-attached official development assistance (ODA) despite its domestic fiscal worries.
Ministers from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with South Korea and China, met in Tokyo for a one-day meeting to review Japan's ODA program, which ties funding to specific projects.
"At the very least, there was a strong hope expressed that Japan maintain the (current) level of ODA," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told a joint press conference at the end of the meeting.
Japan, burdened with a massive national debt, cut its initial ODA budget by 10.3 percent to 910.6 billion yen (US$7.6 billion) for the year to next March.
It followed a drastic drop in aid to China of 24.7 percent to 161.4 billion yen in the year to this March, but nations said they wanted Japan to stop the cuts there.
But seeking to put Japan's financial straits in context, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters: "Japan is nevertheless the second largest economic power in the world." "I hope that such kind of mutually beneficial ODA and other undertakings between Japan and China as well as other countries in East Asia will continue to have sound growth in the future," he said.
Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien thanked Japan for 10 years of development aid, but said the Vietnamese economy was fragile and still in need of help.
"We are trying to make ODA more effective, more open and more adaptable," Nguyen said. "We do hope this ODA assistance will continue, especially for developing countries like Vietnam."
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reassured the ministers in a statement of Tokyo's commitment to development in the region.
"Japan remains committed to actively provide assistance to East Asia while further efficient implementation and prioritization of ODA will be kept in mind," he said.
In a joint statement issued at the end of the talks, ministers said ODA "has a role to play" in alleviating "an excessive widening of disparity among and within countries," brought on by globalization.
It also said regional security was vital in economic growth following the terrorist attacks of September 11 on the United States.
Kawaguchi skirted the issue of Japan's participation in a regional free trade area being discussed by ASEAN and China.
A framework agreement for an ASEAN-China free trade area with an integrated market of 1.7 billion consumers is to be inked at the ASEAN leaders' summit in Cambodia in November.
"Japan welcomes the discussion and efforts of ASEAN and China to have a free trade agreement," Kawaguchi said, however noting Japan was pursuing separate-track "economic partnership agreements" outside the talks.
"We have one (bilateral agreement) with Singapore and we have proposed this to ASEAN countries both as a whole and also individually with those countries which are ready," she said.
The Tokyo meeting, called the Initiative for Development in East Asia (IDEA) groups ASEAN countries plus China, South Korea and Japan. The next meeting place and time was not determined.
ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.