January 25, 2010
TOKYO (AFP) - Japan will pledge a total of 70 million dollars in aid to quake-hit Haiti at an international donors conference in Montreal on Monday, the Kyodo news agency reported.
"The Japanese government has decided to increase its aid for quake-hit Haiti from five million dollars to 70 million dollars," Kyodo reported from New York, citing unnamed government sources.
International donors prepared to meet Monday in Montreal to discuss rebuilding Haiti after the January 12 quake, the worst recorded disaster ever to hit the Americas, with a death toll expected to top 150,000.
The United States, Canada, France, Brazil and other donors with interests in Haiti will attempt to craft long-term strategies to lift the crippled country, the poorest in the western hemisphere, onto a path to recovery.
Japan had initially pledged five million dollars days after the quake, an amount much smaller than the US aid pledge of 100 million dollars and less than the 10 million dollars vowed by South Korea, Kyodo reported.
The report said that after the initial aid pledge "the United Nations strongly urged Japan to add more aid as the world's second -largest economy and as the second-biggest donor to the UN."
