WB eyes infrastructure as priority for E. Timor

WB eyes infrastructure as priority for E. Timor

SINGAPORE (AFP): Some US$70 million is expected to be
channeled into rebuilding East Timor's infrastructure next year,
when pledges from donor countries of the World Bank come through,
the bank said Tuesday.

The $70 million is part of a $300 million trust fund the World
Bank hopes to raise for East Timor at a consultative meeting on
Dec. 17 in Tokyo, said Lucy Oh, spokesperson for the bank's Joint
Assessment Mission to East Timor.

The World Bank is to work closely with relief efforts to
ensure a smooth transition to development projects that would
take place in the near-term, she said.

"I believe the relief efforts will be within the next six to
nine months, and then we'll be taking over more of the
development longer-term objectives," Oh told a news conference
here.

The Tokyo meeting is to be co-chaired by the World Bank and
the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor.
Participants will include some 100 delegates from multilateral
aid agencies and governments including Portugal, Australia and
Japan. East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao will also
attend, Oh said.

Klaus Rohland, World Bank director for East Timor, Papua New
Guinea and the Pacific Islands, has said that the 300 million
dollars will be collected over three years.

The Joint Assessment Mission to East Timor noted in a report
last week that the country had to be rebuilt from scratch, after
the "systematic destruction" that came in the wake of East
Timor's vote for independence from Indonesia.

The damage resulted in a drop of up to 45 percent in East
Timor's gross domestic product for 1999.