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"PRC will spend 20 billion yuan ($2.93 billion) on rural water conservation projects as one of the steps it is taking to stimulate domestic demand. The money will mainly go to projects that will reinforce risky water reservoirs, save water in major irrigation areas and improve drinking water safety in rural areas.

These projects will address prominent rural development problems. Statistics indicate that 53 percent of China's arable land lacks basic irrigation facilities, causing 50 billion kg of grain to be lost every year. More than one third of the 85,000 reservoirs nationwide are rated as risky, while about one third of all counties and villages lack qualified water supply equipment."

"After nine months of erratic blackouts and broken government promises, the citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic are growing restless. Last spring, following the harshest winter in living memory, the government announced electricity rationing. Despite an official pledge that conservation measures would stop in summer, the unpredictable blackouts are continuing -- and they are now paired with fears about a heating shortage.

Throughout spring and fall, most of the capital experienced six- or eight-hour cutoffs daily, with electricity scarcer in rural areas. Officials have urged residents to use alternative sources of heat, such as coal. Many now believe corruption is contributing to the crisis, alleging that officials have been illegally selling power created at the reservoir to neighboring countries."

"The Sri Lanka government has set up 64 IT service delivery centers in the Eastern Province. A majority of the IT centers follow a community model where they are established in a central place of a village such as a religious institution, public library or a community organization.

They provide a range of services including high speed Internet to access national, local and international information, e-mail, telephone, computer training classes and other IT related facilities."

"As the effects of the global financial crisis make themselves felt in Kazakhstan, the worst-hit groups at the moment are building site workers, some of them people from rural parts of the country, and others migrant laborers from the poorer neighbouring states of the Kyrgyz Rep and Uzbekistan.

The construction sector experienced a boom lasting several years, with new buildings appearing all over the major cities. Official statistics put the unemployment rate at 6.4 percent in the third quarter of this year. This does not appear to capture the growth of redundancies in the construction industry, where even some of the major players have been shedding staff."

"The private credit business has long been labeled 'underground banking' in PRC. The move by the central bank to legalize it indicates the long-thriving business in some coastal regions can come out in the open from its previous backstage operation. The move will have great influence on the country's financial market that has long been dominated by state-run banks.

It also indicates authorities' strong intention to rope in non-government capital to make up for an insufficiency in the official capital market. A number of domestic enterprises, especially middle and small-sized ones, are being plagued by severe funding insufficiency because of the bleak external consumption demand."

"Food and fuel prices have declined slightly over the past month in Afghanistan, prompting some to say this could bode well for the country's eight million chronically food-insecure people. The average price of wheat flour -- a staple in Afghanistan -- is at least 3.4 percent lower in November than September.

Afghanistan is facing a 36 percent reduction in domestic agricultural production. The government recently announced a two million ton food deficit. It has decided to import about 250,000 tons of wheat from Pakistan and Kazakhstan. High fuel prices over the past few months have adversely affected food prices. Fuel prices are now coming down but not fast enough, according to the government."

"The Indian government is working on a fresh stimulus package in tandem with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to help various sectors of the economy in tiding over the slowdown owing to the liquidity crunch in the wake of the global financial crisis.

RBI Governor D. Subbarao said that the RBI was constantly monitoring the liquidity situation and a decision on its future course of action on interest rates would be taken at an appropriate time."

"The shipbuilding industry has been advised to develop human resources and ancillary industries to achieve its targets of increasing local content and become the world's fourth-largest shipbuilder in the next decade, a conference heard. Educational institutions needed to fulfill the shipping industry's needs in terms of both quality and number of students.

Shipbuilders should step up cooperation with foreign partners and training units should sign agreements with international universities. Metallurgy, steel, engine manufacturing, and other subsidiary industries and maritime services needed to be developed. In recent years the shipbuilding industry has grown considerably to meet domestic as well as export demand, but it still grapples with problems like dated technologies, poor infrastructure, and lack of skilled human resources."

"More than 300,000 people in nine districts in the far and mid-west of Nepal have been facing rapidly deteriorating food security due to crop failures and high food prices. Food-for-work schemes in some of these areas are enabling local households to repair damage from landslides and crop failures, improve the general infrastructure and provide sustenance during lean times.

In 2008, Maila faced a double whammy of a winter drought that destroyed 40-60 percent of the wheat and barley crop, rain- and hail-storms, combined with numerous landslides, which reduced the millet and rice harvests in July and August by as much as 30 to 50 percent. Improved trails are particularly important to enable safe passage of mule trains and residents to and from distant markets, for farmers to get to their distant plots and for children to travel safely to school."

"The Bangladesh government has imposed export ban of all varieties of rice for a period of six months to boost the supply of the staple in the local market. The decision follows reports that a section of unscrupulous traders were making shipments of highly consumed coarse rice in the name of an aromatic variety, which was allowed for export.

The move is expected to remove the scarcity of rice and curb price hike in the coming months. The decision came almost six months after the commerce ministry imposed an export ban on only non-aromatic rice and allowed continuation of export of the aromatic variety. The country spent more than $800 million to import rice to meet the local shortfall caused by natural disasters in 2007-08."

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