Japan to continue aid to RP, other developing countries

Japan will continue to extend financial assistance to developing countries, including the Philippines, despite being in a recession caused by the global economic crisis, an official said.

Norio Matsuda, resident representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), said the Japanese government, in collaboration with other lending agencies including the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank (WB), would continue to provide assistance to the Philippines to mitigate the impact of the financial crisis on the country’s economy.

“The Japanese government is willing to assist heavily affected countries like the Philippines. We are not selecting any individual project,” he said.

Japan has been the top donor to the Philippines for the past 22 years.

According to the website of the Japanese Embassy in Manila, for the past 10 years more than half of the total foreign assistance to the Philippines has been extended by Japan.

Japanese assistance to the Philippines has also been funneled through multilateral donors such as the ADB, WB and various United Nations agencies.

Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines had reached $9.144 billion for the past 22 years and the country ranks as the third largest recipient, next to Indonesia and China, the embassy said.

Through the decades, Japanese ODA has been contributing to the Philippines’ development efforts in many fields, including irrigation, flood control, education, health care, earthquake detection, rural road network construction/improvement, water supply, and livelihood programs.

Some multinational companies in the Philippines have closed down while others have scaled back their operations in the country, leaving a number of Filipino workers jobless.

A labor official earlier predicted that about 250,000 workers nationwide are likely to lose their jobs in the next six months due to the global financial crisis.

The Department of Labor and Employment earlier reported that 30,000 workers have been displaced since December and the figure could reach 35,000 by the end of the month.