Japan has decided to provide an additional 20 million US dollars through
Japanese trust funds at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for supporting relief
measures indevastated areas in the recent India Ocean earthquake and tsunami, a
visiting senior official said Tuesday.
Japanese Financial Secretary Sadakazu Tanigaki, who is paying avisit to the
Philippines, said in a speech in ADB that the Japan will provide assistance to
the victims in the disaster through three ways: financial resources, human
resources, and knowledge and expertise.
Besides 500 million US dollars Japan has pledged to grant the affected
countries as emergency assistance to cope with the damage,it will also assist in
reconstruction and rehabilitation works in every possible way, Tanigaki said.
"Proactive and timely use of Japanese trust funds in the ADB should be
encouraged to prompt the ADB's operations," he said.
Tanigaki also said that Japan will call on other countries to jointly apply
moratorium on public debt services for a certain period of time, when any
disaster-stricken country so wishes.
In order to prevent the repetition of the tsunami disaster, Japan will also
make vigorous efforts to expeditiously establish atsunami early-warning
mechanism for the Indian Ocean countries, headded.
