Consultative Committee on Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia

The seventh meeting of the Consultative Committee on Economic Development in South and Southeast Asia (Colombo Plan) was held in Singapore from October 17 to 21, 1955, attended by the original members (Australia, Canada, Ceylon, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, together with Malaya and British Borneo), and by representatives of more recent member countries, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the United States, Burma, Nepal, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand. The United Kingdom announced at the meeting that it had decided to increase its commitment for technical assistance to Colombo Plan members to £7 million over the seven years beginning in April 1956, and the representative for the United States announced that his government had offered to establish in south or southeast Asia a center for nuclear research and training which would include a research reactor and a small power reactor. A communique issued at the conclusion of the meeting mentioned the increasing degree of self-help in the economic development of the region, and stressed the need to encourage private investment in the area. It was further announced that it had been decided at the meeting to extend the Colombo Plan, previously scheduled to end in 1957, until 1961.