International donors are meeting in Brussels to pledge funds to help Georgia recover after its August conflict with Russia, which experts say will require $3.25bn over the next three years.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive, has promised a total of $660m by 2010 and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner, wants the EU's 27 states to match that figure.

"This is most important, not only because we want to support physically and directly the Georgians, but also because it is a political symbol of solidarity with the Georgian people," Ferrero-Waldner said at the conference on Wednesday.

Russia sent in troops after Georgia tried to retake a breakaway pro-Russian region from separatists. Moscow has since withdrawn soldiers from Georgia proper, but the West accused Moscow of a disproportionate use of force.

Aid pledges

The US has offered at least $1bn to help Georgia rebuild after Russian troops and tanks crushed the country's armed forces and damaged infrastructure.

Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan's deputy foreign minister, said Japan had pledged $200m in aid to Georgia, at the talks on Wednesday.
But little has been said about funding for reconstruction in South Ossetia, which was at the heart of the conflict.

Dmitri Babich, an analyst from Russian Profile magazine, told Al Jazeera: "The only nation that has so far pledged to help South Ossetia is Russia.

"The amount of money is very high, even by Russian standards," Babich said, adding that it was about $20-30m.

"Although South Ossetia has only 10-20,000 people, and Russia has 1,000 times more people, Russia is the only country helping South Ossetia."

Wednesday's ministerial-level meeting will be co-chaired by the European Commission and the World Bank.

More than 70 countries were invited as well as international financial institutions.

Lado Gurgenidze, the Georgian prime minister, said: "We currently have seen pledges or indications of about $1.8bn.

"We clearly have issues related to the recovery of the direct civilian damage," Gurgenidze said of the tens of thousands displaced by the conflict.

"We need to resettle them, give them livelihoods, rehabilitate the damaged areas - this costs a lot of money, the kind of money we, on our own, cannot afford."

Foreign dependence

Resource-rich Georgia, a key energy transit route, depends on foreign capital for growth and has enjoyed an investment boom since Mikheil Saakashvili's 2003 election as president.

Russian bombing raids in August hit mainly military targets, but Tbilisi also reported damage to civilian infrastructure and risks to its economic growth and investment.

A UN and World Bank-co-ordinated assessment has estimated that Georgia needs $3.25bn over three years to cover budget support, social sector support and infrastructure development.

The central bank in Tbilisi said last month that international institutions had pledged a loan package of about $1bn to help soften the impact of the conflict on the banking sector, which has had to scale down expectations of foreign investment.

It said institutions ready to help included the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank's International Financial Corp, Germany's KfW and the Asian Development Bank.

Last month, the IMF approved a $750m loan programme aimed at rebuilding Georgia's currency reserves and restoring investor confidence.


Al Jazeera and agencies