Pacific's atolls most vulnerable to commodity prices: ADB
Updated
![The Asian Development Bank has downgraded the economic growth prospects for the Pacific's six atoll. [Reuters]](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/img/news/base/phils_adb_rtr_050508.jpg?<BR> "The Asian Development Bank has downgraded the economic growth prospects for the Pacific's six atoll. [Reuters]")
The Asian Development Bank has downgraded the economic growth prospects for the Pacific's six atoll. [Reuters]
The Asian Development Bank has warned that the atoll nations of the Pacific will be hardest hit by rising fuel and food prices, notably Kiribati, Mashall Islands and Tuvalu.
While overall growth prospects for the Pacific islands have been revised upwards, the six atolls of the region have been significantly downgraded.
The ADB's Pacific economist, Craig Sugden, has told Radio Australia the biggest fiscal and social impacts will be on the region's poorest.
"I think the most vulnerable people are going to be those living in squatter settlements within the urban areas," he said.
"Its certainly is also the case those are very remote, those who don't have land readily usable for agriculture are going to be very exposed."
