World aid and oil cost

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33454, 8 February 1974, Page 9

World aid and oil cost

i.x.Z.P A Reuter—Copyright) SUVA. Feb. 7. The President of the World Bank, Mr Robert McNamara, said in Suva today that the oil price rises would cost developing countries SNZ6723m a year in foreign exchange requirements. Mr McNamara flew into Suva today for talks with the Fijian Prime Minister (Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) on his way to New Zealand. In a nine-minute press conference, he told reporters that the World Bank’s development programmes would be seriously hit by oil prices and he was not sure where the extra money would come from. But this was not necessarily the maj'or problem confronting member nations. He said that the World Bank’s developed country members were providing “totally inadequate” amounts of money to help developing countries. Mr McNamara reaffirmed his strong support for family planning and said that unless world population growth slowed sharply, hundreds of millions more people would be living in degrading circumstances. Already the number living in these conditions was “absolutely unacceptable,’ he said.