COLOMBO PLAN GRANTS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27224, 16 December 1953, Page 7

COLOMBO PLAN GRANTS

ECONOMIC BENEFITS REPORTED COMMENT BY MR T. C. WEBB (New Zealand Press Association) ■nt WELLINGTON, December 15. New Zealand’s aid to Colombo Plan countries was being used to good economic advantage, and was creating goodwill towards New Zealand in the area, said the Minister of External Affairs (Mr T. C. Webb) today. Experience was proving the soundness of the projects for which New Zealand had granted capital assistance, he said.

Mr Webb, who was commenting on the report of the Consultative Committee of the plan, prepared at its meeting in New Delhi recently, said bad spent or committed 000 in capital assistance out of £3,000,000 promised, and £200,000 in technical assistance. He announced that £128,000 had been set aside for a trade training centre in Indonesia. New Zealand would also probably provide supplementary technical assistance for this scheme.

The project was still being planned, and negotiations between the New Zealand and Indonesian Governments were proceeding ’ before payment of the New Zealand grant, said the Minister.

“Indonesia, with a population of 75,000,000, and, among the Colombo Plan countries of South and Southeast Asia, the nearest neighbour of New Zealand, is the most important of the non-Commonwealth recipients of Colombo Plan aid,” said Mr Webb. Australia and Britain had already given Indonesia capital and technical assistance under the plan, he said. Committee’s Report

The Consultative Committee’s report reviews the New Zealand grants of both capital and technical assistance. Under New Zealand’s pledge to make £3,000,000 available in three years, India has been allocated £1.000,000 (£250,000 of which has actually. been ‘paid) to help to meet the capita,! cost of constructing the AllIndia Medical Institute in New Delhi. Pakistan has been allocated £750,000, of which a third is for earth-moving equipment, and.the rest to help to meet the capital cost of establishing a cement factory. The sum of £500,000 out of this grant has been paid. Ceylon has received £500,000 for a dry-farming research station. The report discloses that Australia has spent or committed £13.350,000. and Canada 76,600,000 dollars. The United Kingdom is releasing sterling balances at the rate of about £42,000,000 a year. In addition, it is providing financial assistance for the economic development of British territories in the area, and the outlay and commitments for this purpose amount to £65,000,000.

Britain has also extended a credit of £10.000,000 to Pakistan for the purchase of equipment. American technical and economic assistance to the area has amounted to 270,000,000 dollars in the two years ending in June, 1953, and appropriations for next year total 160,000,000 dollars.

The report says that, in addition, the United States provided emergency loans and grants to meet famine conditions in India and Pakistan. These loans and grants amounted to 300,000,000 dollars. In its survey of the economic situation in South and South-east Asia, the committee says that in spite of falls in the price of raw materials produced there, and increases in the costs of development programmes, the countries are pushing ahead energetically. The full benefits of the plan, it is stated, are not expected till 1957, but already there is concrete evidence of progress. During the two-year period 1952-53 about 3.500,000 acres of land in India benefited by irrigation works, and 'food production there increased by nearly • 5,000.000 tons. Ceylon opened up 40,000 acres of irrigable land. Pakistan added 400,000 acres to the area under cultivation and doubled her electric power capacity from 70,000 to 140,000 kilowatts.