ROME, Nov 29 (AFP) - Italy's Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia said Monday that Rome was seeking to postpone a pledged 100 million euro (132 million dollars) contribution to the United Nations Global Fund to fight AIDS, because of domestic cutbacks.
"Italy has asked for a postponement of its fund payment to the poor countries in the campaign against AIDS," Sirchia told medical staff and volunteers at the opening of an anti-AIDS congress in Milan.
"Unfortunately the budgetary situation doesn't allow for it. We have other priorities."
Rome has already overshot a September 30 deadline for the payment.
Since it was created in 2002, the Fund has raised only three billion dollars, a drop in the bucket compared to the 30 billion projected.
Italy's draft budget includes measures to rein in the public deficit to below the European Union ceiling of three percent of output, and aims to tighten health, education and public service spending, while lowering income taxes.
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