Japan pledges new post-typhoon loan package for US$ 250M

By Gloria Jane Baylon

MANILA, Dec. 3 (PNA) -- Japan pledged on Wednesday a new loan package for US$ 250 million for the Philippines’ development policy and emergency budget support programs, Japanese Ambassador to Manila Makoto Katsura announced.

Katsura gave details of the package during the second Public-Private Sector Dialogue for Post-Disaster Assistance in neighboring Makati City, which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and representatives from various development partners and agencies attended.

The yen loan package is composed of US$ 100 million for the Development Policy Support Program III (DPSP III) and US$ 150 million emergency budget support.

The package also includes a fact-finding mission from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to arrive in Manila Thursday (December 3) in response to the results of the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment conducted recently by the World Bank, Katsura noted.

At the same address today, Katsura also mentioned a number of other Japanese assistance projects to the Philippines which are relevant to the post-typhoons recovery and reconstruction process.

Katsura noted that the occurrence of natural disasters “undermines the fruit of development accumulated over many years and hinders the achievement of sustainable development.

"As we have seen, natural disasters tend to destroy the achievements of long-term development process. Therefore, Japan has attached importance to cooperation in the field of disaster prevention. In order to avoid or minimize damages from future disasters, enhancing capacities for forecasting and early warning will be extremely important."

He said that "for this reason, Japan has put in so much effort at supporting Asian countries in the field of disaster prevention.”

When typhoon “Ondoy” struck at the end of September, Japan was among the earliest to extend emergency humanitarian response, with food aid amounting to US$ 4.5 million channeled through the World Food Program, and relief assistance through Japanese non-governmental organizations.

Just last week, Japan also concluded two other yen loan projects, through the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines, totaling US$ 518 million (about Y45 billion) for developing logistics infrastructure and assisting agriculture credits. The funds will be available soon, said Katsura.

The ambassador said Japan is concerned about the large number of farmers severely hit by typhoon Pepeng that immediately followed Ondoy.

Thus, on top of assisting the agriculture credit, Japan supports in distributing fertilizers to low income farmers with the coordination of Department of Agriculture, he said.

On Thursday, the envoy said he will visit Subic Port to turn over 13.5 thousand metric tons of fertilizers for affected farmers in Northern and Central Luzon.

The fertilizer grant, worth Y480 million (about US$ 5.5 million)) covers about half of the entire program for FY 2009. (PNA)