ASMARA: President Isaias Afwerki said Eritrea would not suffer from hunger and food shortages in 2010, a government website reported. Hunger levels in Eritrea are ranked among the worst in the world by humanitarian organisations, with the agriculture-based economy affected by irregular rainfall.

But the president said Asmara would meet the demands of those regions hardest hit.

“The Government has drawn up plans towards ensuring no-hunger situation nationwide,” the state website Shabait.com reported the president as saying.

“(The president) said that a time when the greater portion of the Horn of Africa is expected to face acute food shortage, there would exist no hunger in Eritrea in 2010,” it said.

But the president, who was speaking in the coastal town Massawa, warned living standards in Eritrea could still fall due to illegal trade, black market currency exchange, and a lack of regular payment of taxes and customs duties.

Isaias said all trade and investment permits currently in place would be reviewed in 2010.

Projections made by various experts and humanitarian organisations are at odds with the claim that the Red Sea state will be free from hunger next year.

Last month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated as many as two in every three Eritreans were malnourished, the second highest percentage in the world after the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo.

Analysts fear any widespread acute hunger in the country would be difficult to arrest because of the travel restrictions Asmara places on humanitarian organisations.

East Africa is facing a devastating drought.