May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Surging food prices are hurting 1 billion Asians as the region's poor struggle to cope with rising food and energy costs that are stoking inflation, Asian Development Bank President Haruhiko Kuroda said.

``Soaring food prices are hitting the poor very hard,'' Kuroda told delegates attending the ADB's annual meeting in Madrid yesterday. ``Their purchasing power has been eroded, placing them at a greater risk of hunger and malnutrition.''

Global food prices surged 57 percent in March from a year earlier, according to the United Nations. Asia's poorest countries including Bangladesh and Tajikistan have borne the brunt of the increases, Kuroda said on May 3, even as the price gains stoked social tensions in other parts of the world.

``Reduced supplies, increased demands, record high energy prices, the steep depreciation of the U.S. dollar and trade restrictions imposed by some countries have all combined to cause the price surge in recent months,'' Kuroda said.

Vietnam and other rice-producing nations have curtailed exports to maintain supplies and damp local inflation, pushing up prices for buyers such as the Philippines, the world's biggest importer of the grain.

The rising prices have led to wider fiscal deficits as governments in the region subsidize food and energy costs for their people. The ADB last week said it will make ``sizeable'' loans to help countries in Asia and the Pacific meet the cost of higher food prices.

The lender was formed in 1966 to improve the welfare of people in the Asia and the Pacific. Two-thirds of the world's poor reside in the region, and about 600 million Asians survive on less than $1 a day.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shamim Adam in Madrid sadam2@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 6, 2008 01:21 EDT