Sky-high global food prices may continue rising and damage growth in some Asian economies this year and the next, the Asian Development Bank's top official said Saturday.
"In the long term, prices could continue to rise... the era of cheap food prices may be over," ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said. "Several countries appear to be severely affected," he told reporters ahead of the multilateral development institution's annual meeting being held in Madrid this year.
In a report released the same day, the ADB said wheat export prices have increased 130%, rice prices 98% and maize 38% over the past year, hurting the purchasing power of a billion poor people in the region. At least a dozen of 58 countries surveyed by the World Bank have recently reduced tariffs on food imports and erected barriers to exports in the hopes of restraining domestic food prices and moving toward self-sufficiency.
I keep posting information like this to show the global food crisis that is here and getting worse. The reason for it? Many and varied so there is no easy fix. Just lots of problems.
The $200 billion in the Dem's new stimulas package ($1000.00) to each of us will be VERY BAD for the economy since the recession that wasn't is over and the recovery has begun. Inflation is now the problem. But to "BUY your vote Nancy P and Harry R will do anything and President Bush will be too weak to "Just Say No".
Mike Desmond & Ziggy the Office Kat
Milford, OH
Sorry to be so long winded but this is a very complex and multiple armed problem. I could fix it BUT no one has elected me to be Chief Dictator [yet]so, you mortals must suffer on!
At least Ziggy loves/listens me.