The Hindu : Front Page : Rising global food prices also due to India’s prosperity: Bush

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Rising global food prices also due to India’s prosperity: Bush

Washington: United States President George W. Bush joined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in ascribing the spiralling global food prices to the rising prosperity of India’s huge middle class.

Prosperity in countries such as India was “good” but it triggered increased demand for “better nutrition” which in turn led to higher food prices, Mr. Bush said.

At an interactive session on economy in Missouri, Mr. Bush argued that there were many factors for the present crisis, only one of which was investment in biofuels such as ethanol.

“Worldwide there is increasing demand. There turns out to be prosperity in developing world, which is good. It’s going to be good for you because you’ll be selling products in the countries, you know, big countries perhaps, and it’s hard to sell products to countries that aren’t prosperous. In other words, the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is,” he said.

“It also, however, increases demand … There are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That’s bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population.

“And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up,” he said.

The comments come close on the heels of Ms. Rice’s suggestion that the “apparent improvement” in the diets of people in India and China and consequent food export caps were among the causes of the global food crisis. — PTI

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