Madrid: One billion people in Asia are seriously affected by surging global food prices, the director general of the Asian Development Bank, Rajat Nag, said today in Spain.

"This includes roughly about 600 million people who live on just under a dollar a day, which is the definition of poverty, and another 400 million who are just above that borderline," he told a news conference in Madrid.

Soaring food prices will be the focus of discussions when the Asian Development Bank (ADB) gathers for a four-day annual meeting that gets underway Saturday in the Spanish capital, Nag said.

"We will talk about ways to help the poor including targeting cash income support and ADB will respond to requests from the governments to help them with emergency assistance for budgetary support for that," he said.

"We will also discuss in the longer term what o do about increased investments in agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation systems, farm to market roads greater support for rural finances," he added.

The ADB predicts inflation in Asia will hit 5.1 per cent in 2008,its highest level in 10 years due mostly to the rise in food and fuel costs.

"We believe this is the greatest policy challenge which we face," Nag said.

The food price rises are blamed on higher energy and fertiliser costs, greater global demand, droughts, the loss of ice farmland to biofuel plantations and price speculation.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon yesterday ordered a top level task force to take on the global crisis caused by rising food prices and urged key producer nations to end export bans.

Source : PTI