The World Bank will provide 200 billion rupiah (some 20 million US dollars) funds to finance urban poor development projects in Indonesia in 2006, Director General for Urban Housing Development of the Ministry of Public Works, Agus Widjanarko said.

"We have set aside funds for urban development projects because this is a continuous program that will last until 2009," the director general who was quoted by the Antara news wire as saying Wednesday.

The projects are continuous program until 2009, whose funds would be taken from the World Bank's free-interest soft loans, he said.

Agus said that the World Bank provided the funds in the rupiah currency but it would be payable in the US dollars. "The fall of the rupiah currency to over 10,000 rupiah per US dollar would a bit affect the refund," he added.

The funds for the projects were set at 200 billion rupiah for the 2006 fiscal year, or 20 billion higher than the amounts made available for the same purpose in 2005.

Source: Xinhua