Japan has pledged $12 billion to help developing countries take advantage of world trade and facilitate their economic growth during the three-year period to 2011.
Shintaro Ito, state secretary for foreign affairs, made the pledge as Japanese government representative during a World Trade Organization conference on the "Aid for Trade" process.
The process officially launched in 2005 at WTO ministerial conference is designed to help poor nations build trade-related infrastructure like ports and roads and train citizens in trade-related matters, in order to take full advantage of global trade liberalization.
In a similar contribution to the "Aid for Trade" process, Japan disbursed $10 billion in the three-year period to 2008.
With these contributions, Japan is following a policy of placing greater emphasis on the provision of trade-related assistance at a time when the size of the nation's overall budget for official development assistance is on a downward path.
Ito also told the conference that Japan intends to provide technical assistance to a total of 40,000 people from developing countries during the three-year period through 2011.
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