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Asia’s response to tightening global grain supplies
has worsened food
price inflation and uncertainty, according to an Asian Development
Bank (ADB) report released on Friday in Manila.
Export bans and price floors
imposed by grain exporters including China, Pakistan, Vietnam, and
India “have increased price volatility and uncertainty in the
international rice markets,” reducing supplies.
These have been “contributing
significantly to the surge in rice price especially since the end of
2007,” the Manila-based lender said.
Among the importers,
“precautionary demand for food stocks in many countries is
contributing to food grain price increases,” said the report,
which cited “sustained procurements” in international markets by
Bangladesh and the Philippines.
The report, “Soaring Food
Prices: Response to the Crisis,” said “strong political and
economic factors “ were at play in the food policies of most
developing Asian countries, “so that the effect of sharply higher
international prices has not been fully transmitted to domestic
prices.”
ADB said crackdowns by the
governments of Bangladesh and the Philippines on private traders
accused of hoarding food grains were “difficult to implement”
and have in fact “increased prices in the domestic market of many
countries.”
The report also said the “lack
of efficient logistics systems and infrastructure for food grain
marketing and distribution” has “tightened the market further”
in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines and Tajikistan.
ADB announced at its annual
meeting in Madrid earlier this week that it will provide $500
million in immediate assistance to member-nations hit hardest by
soaring food prices.
Over the longer term, the report
urged Asian countries to correct “distortions arising from
interventionist price and trade policies,” increased investments
in irrigation, related farm infrastructure, and research, and
upgrade of drying and storage facilities to cut post-harvest losses
of up to 30 percent.
It also called for improved
farmer and rural poor access to credit.
ADB estimates that the soaring
food prices could affect a billion people in Asia, home to
two-thirds of the world’s poor and where spending on food accounts
for 60 percent of total average expenditure.
ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda has
also warned that the food problem could cut into decades of economic
gains in the Asia Pacific region.
--AFP
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