SOUTH-EAST ASIA DEVELOPMENT

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27824, 24 November 1955, Page 11

SOUTH-EAST ASIA DEVELOPMENT

Capital For Economic Expansion Sought COLOMBO PLAN report (N.Z Press Association— Conimaht) LONDON, November 22. Several Asian countries are now working on policies aimed to attract a bigger flow of foreign capital for economic expansion, it was disclosed today in the fourth annual report of the Colombo Plan. This is the £2,000 000,000 six-vear project created to assist the economic development of South and South-east Asia. The report was approved by the 19 member countries at their recent annual meeting in Singapore The report says that in 1954-55. most countries of the area maintained and a few surpassed,- the rate of progress recorded a year earlier. “The economic progress of the area as a whole was favoured by a generally expanding world economy,” savs the report. But it noints out that some countries have suffered through fluctuations in the relatively high postwar price of rice. This staple foodstuff, traded largely within the area, continued to fall in price, adversely affecting the riceexporting countries. All countries in the area gained from a drop in import prices, but not all managed to get more for their staple exports. When the progress made was related to the fundamental problem of raising the living standards of a population rising by about 10.000,000 a year, it was clear that much more remained to be done. Current levels of food consumption a head, though substantially higher than in the early post-war years, were lower than before the war and below the accepted standards of nutrition. “In practically every country of the region under-employment, especially in rural areas, is common, and in some countries unemployment has become a serious issue,” says the report. Development plans had. therefore, both a current and a long-term problem to meet if beneficial employment was to be created at a rate sufficient to keep up with and overtake the annual increase in the labour force. The need for increased external capital remained as a crucial supplement to the efforts being made by the countries of the area to increase their own external resources. The member countries of the plan are: Australia. Burma. Cambodia. Canada, Ceylon. India. Indonesia. Japan, Laos, Malaya, British Borneo. Nepal, New Zealand. Pakistan, the Philippines, Siam, Britain, the United States, and Vietnam.