Japan announced an additional $500 million in aid to the Philippines at the beginning of a two-day international meeting Wednesday in Tokyo to draw up measures to help the country cope with its economic difficulties.

At the meeting's outset, State Secretary for Finance Sadakazu Tanigaki said, "Japan would like to extend financial support amounting to the yen equivalent of $500 million in total, using the guarantee facility of the Export- Import Bank of Japan."

Fifteen countries and nine international financial lending institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, are attending the Donors' Consultative Group Meeting. Japan's additional aid is being given under the so-called Miyazawa Plan, a $30 billion fund proposed in October by Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to help Asian countries hit by the regional economic crisis.

In January, Miyazawa announced that Japan will provide the Philippines with $1.4 billion under the fund to help the country recover from the financial crisis that swept Asia in mid-1997. The added $500 million will bring total loans extended to the Philippines to $1.9 billion.

In a prepared statement read by a member of the Philippine delegation led by Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu, Philippine President Joseph Estrada reiterated the importance of his antipoverty agenda as part of his administration's overall economic development strategy. "For a society to attain truly sustainable growth and to avoid or withstand the severe impact of future crises, it must invest not only in the so-called hard capital of infrastructure and productive facilities, but also in the so-called soft capital," Estrada said in the statement.

This includes "not only investments in human capital ... but also investments in institutional capacity-building and in governance reforms," he said. During the fourth DCG Meeting, the participants are expected to raise a few billion dollars in economic aid as contributed in previous meetings, conference sources said.

This marks the third time that Japan, the Philippines' largest aid donor, is hosting a DCG Meeting and the first after Estrada was inaugurated as president in June.

The Philippine financial sector has been affected by the Asian currency crisis, while its agricultural sector has faired poorly due to recent unexpected climatic changes. Estrada has been combating economic difficulties with his development programs.