year. Based on this Package, Japan has supported the Palestinians in struggle for peace and efforts to consolidate the foundations to build an independent Palestinian state in future with enhancing governance through reforming.

In response to the U.N. Consolidated Appeals Process announced in November 2003 to improve the extremely deteriorated situations of Palestinian self-governing areas, Japan provided additional emergency assistance of approximately 15 million dollars in total. Moreover, Japan gave non-project grant aid of 500 million yen to improve the economic conditions of Palestinian self-governing areas, which had been deteriorating greatly.

Over the period from 1993 through March 2004, Japan provided Palestine with assistance totaling more than 680 million dollars. In an effort to stabilize the Middle East, Japan also gave financial assistance and technical cooperation for projects in various fields to Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, which are engaged in the Middle East peace process.

### 6. Latin America

Japan's ODA given to Latin America on a bilateral basis totaled approximately 463.87 million dollars in 2003, accounting for 7.7% of the total bilateral ODA.

While some countries in Latin America have not fully recovered from the "Argentinean Economic Crisis" in December 2001, the region as a whole has generally been stabilized politically and economically through democratization and economic reform carried out in the 1990s. In the region, the process of regional economic unification has progressed as shown in the formation of MERCOSUR (Mercado Comun del Sur) and CARICOM (Caribbean Community), etc. As a part of such efforts, discussions have been held for the formation of the FTAA (Free Trade Area of Americas), which covers both North and South America. Despite such progress, Latin America has seen drastic economic reforms widening economic gaps in the region and within each country in the region. As a result, social problems such as poverty and domestic instability have worsened in some countries. The ODA Charter specifies that Japan should provide Latin America with necessary assistance in consideration of the

Chart II -34 Japan's ODA Disbursements to the Middle East

Rank	Country or region	Grant	Total	Yen loans, etc.	Total
Grant aid	Technical cooperation
1	Afghanistan	107.09	27.33	134.42	-	-	134.42
2	Tunisia	1.09	10.35	11.44	74.08	85.52
3	Morocco	15.95	15.24	31.19	33.59	64.79
4	Jordan	60.94	8.71	69.65	-21.32	48.33
5	Yemen	26.28	2.21	28.49	-3.95	24.54
6	Egypt	9.23	19.37	28.60	-6.92	21.68
7	Lebanon	1.95	2.98	4.93	8.58	13.51
8	Iran	1.72	15.90	17.62	-6.30	11.32
9	(Palestine)	3.13	1.34	4.46	-	4.46
10	Saudi Arabia	-	4.41	4.41	-	4.41
11	Iraq	2.44	0.69	3.13	-	3.13
12	Oman	-	2.69	2.69	-	2.69
13	Sudan	0.60	0.87	1.47	-	1.47
14	Turkey	0.46	18.08	18.54	-17.55	1.00
15	Bahrain	-	0.29	0.29	-	0.29
16	Algeria	0.11	1.08	1.19	-1.05	0.14
17	Syria	20.29	9.80	30.09	-36.71	-6.62
Others	0.00	1.39	1.39	0.00	1.39
Middle East Total	251.27	142.74	394.02	22.47	416.48

Note: (1) The geographic division was made based on the classification by the Foreign Ministry. The parentheses indicate the name of a region.

(2) Includes graduated countries.

(3) As the figures in the table are rounded off, they do not necessarily add up to the totals.