The Indonesian government will reject any foreign offer to provide loans for its ongoing efforts to help victims of the Yogyakarta and Central Java earthquake, a cabinet minister said.

"We will not accept any overseas loan although a number of foreign countries and international institutions, including the ADB, have offered to extend soft loans, we prefer grant aid," National Development Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta said here on Thursday.

Earlier, the Foreign Ministry had reported that assistance pledges made by foreign countries and international funding organizations to help quake victims in Yogyakarta and Central Java so far totaled 47.7 million U.S. dollars from 14 countries and 1.6 million euros from three countries.

Among the countries that had provided or promised to provide the aid are China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, Japan, USA, Kuwait, Australia, South Korea, Canada and the UK.

In addition, Malaysia, Singapore, the European Union (EU), Russia, France and Germany had pledged to give assistance, as had a number of international institutions such as the International Red Cross, the United Nations (UN) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda had also promised to give financial assistance worth 60 million U.S. dollars consisting of 10 million U.S. dollars worth of grants and the remainder in the form of soft loans.

Source: Xinhua