Australia to phase out aid to China, India

SYDNEY: Australia said Wednesday it will phase out aid to rising economic giants China and India, and its focus will be on Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor as well as Africa and the Middle East.

The government this year boosted total aid by almost half a billion dollars to Aus$4.84 billion (US$5.18 billion) but said China and India would no longer qualify for a share.

"Both countries are members of the G20. They are respectively the second and sixth largest economies in the world," said Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd after the first independent review of Australia's aid programme in 15 years.

"Both have considerable economic capacity. And both have begun their own international development assistance programmes," he said.

China currently gets Aus$35 million in assistance while India's share runs to Aus$25 million, according to AusAid.

Rudd said the Asia-Pacific, particularly Australia's nearest neighbours Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor, would remain its top focus.

"It is the region which we believe that we can be most effective in. It is the region where two thirds of the world's poverty currently lies.

"And it is the region of the world where our most direct, strategic and economic interests lie," Rudd, a former prime minister, said.

The Asia-Pacific accounts for nearly 75 percent of Australian aid, with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor the dominant recipients, along with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

"This will continue into the future," Rudd added.

A further 11 percent goes to Africa and the Middle East, and this is set to rise.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011