Colombo Plan approach to Arabs, E.E.C.

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 21

Colombo Plan approach to Arabs, E.E.C.

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

SINGAPORE.

Colombo Plan countries have decided to ask the European Economic Community and three Gulf States to join the plan as observers in a move which could have far-reaching implications for the aid-monitor-ing organisation.

The decision by Ministers of the 27 Colombo Plan countries to approach the E.E.C., Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab emirates was an important attempt to increase the number of donor nations and organisations in the plan, informed sources said.

At present the six donor nations which give aid to the other 21 members of the plan in the Asian-Pacific region are the United States, Britain, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

ZThe most recent donor member is Japan, which Joined in 1955. The sources said the object of asking the E.E.C. and the three Arab states to join as observers was to get them interested in the Colombo Plan, which since its inception in 1950 has monitored and to a certain extent co-ordinated about $22,000m of aid to countries in the region. The E.E.C. — as a body in its own right — has the power to disburse aid, quite apart from aid granted or lent by individual E.E.C. countries.

At present there is no E.E.C. bilateral aid to countries in the region, although •this includes the impoverished nations of South Asia — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka — which are among the countries hit hardest by the soaring cost of oil. The new wealth accruing to the Arab states might also be used to help develop the region, hence the approach to the three Gulf , Kates, the sources said.

These states were chosen because they were both members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting States and were also directly adjacent to the Colombo Plan region, which stretches from Iran to Fiji.