LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The late Shigeto Tsuru's "Japan's Capitalism: Creative Defeat and Beyond," which I referred to and quoted in my Aug. 26 column, urged Japan to "work hard, through both aid and trade, to wipe out the poverty that plagues the Third World."
In the course of the 1990s, Japan did, in fact, significantly increase the amount of aid it disbursed to developing countries. Currently it stands as one the biggest providers of overseas aid in absolute terms, though in relative terms its share of aid to gross domestic product (0.26 percent) is still modest, falling well below the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's target of 0.7 percent. Thus it is significantly lower than generous countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, below most other EU countries and at about the same level as Ireland and Portugal.
In addition, in many rich countries the amount of public government aid is considerably complemented by funds provided by private foundations. These private foundations exist in Japan, but they are comparatively small.