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Singapore: The World Bank warned yesterday that it expects the cost of staple foods such as rice to stay high for years but said the world's food markets were intact and needed no intervention.
"This is not a few weeks, few months thing. It could be two or three years," World Bank managing director Juan Jose Daboub told reporters after a speech at a Singapore university.
He said global food markets were working and had not lost their ability "to fix themselves".
"It's better to have an imperfect market than a perfect bureaucrat deciding for others.
Daboub said 100 million people had been pushed back into poverty over the last two years due to higher food costs. He said that food prices doubling for three years was equivalent to going back seven years in the fight against poverty.
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