Developing countries could save billions of dollars if they start to invest in sanitation now, according to the World Bank's report received by Xinhua on Monday.

The bank said that the investment in Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) in some East Asian countries would have yield of economic rates of return from 30 percent up to 200 percent.

The said that between 1.3 percent and 7.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was lost because of a lack of sanitation.

In five countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam, economic costs amounted to over US$9.2 billion a year due to poor sanitation and hygiene (2005 prices).

"We know from the poor sanitation has considerable negative economic consequences for societies," said WSP's economist Guy Hutton, author of the report.

"We are looking at how much of these costs can be averted, and which are the sanitation interventions that can bring the greatest economic and financial benefits and at least cost,"he said.

Results coming in from the analysis demonstrate that benefit- cost ratios are all above one, ranging from two to as high as 10. The rate of return on spending is from 30 percent to over 200 percent per year.

"The data are confirming our story for which we had little concrete evidence up to now: That investment in sanitation is an efficient use of a society's resources," WSP Regional Team Leader for East Asia and the Pacific Almud Weitz added.

"Governments not only possess the economic evidence that supports increasing budget allocations towards reducing the millions of people currently living without access to sanitation, with the analysis of a variety of investment options, they will now also be able to decide what would be the best use of additional funding made available for the sector. There is no more excuse not to act..," he said.

The WSP is a multi-donor partnership created in 1978 and administered by the World Bank to support poor people in obtaining affordable, safe and sustainable access to water and sanitation services.

(Xinhua News Agency February 1, 2010)