China becomes world's number three food aid donor

ROME, July 20 (Reuters) China became the world's third largest donor of food aid in 2005, statistics released on Thursday showed, rising from ninth place on the chart of the most generous food givers.

The Rome-based World Food Programme said China had increased its total food donations by 260 percent to 577,000 metric tonnes, most of the aid going to North Korea, with some going to Africa and other Asian countries.

The United States remained the biggest donor of food aid, giving 4 million tonnes, or 49 percent of total world food donations, the United Nations agency said, followed by 1.5 million tonnes from the European Union.

The WFP, which handles more than half of all the world's food aid shipments, said 2005 was ''the most challenging year the humanitarian world faced since World War Two'' because of the Asian tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake, the Darfur conflict and other crises.

More than half of food aid in 2005 went to sub-Saharan Africa, with Ethiopia receiving the most, followed by North Korea, both of which received more than 1 million tonnes of aid.

Third was Sudan with almost 900,000 tonnes.

REUTERS SBA DB2018