PARIS -- Foreign governments, notably the United States, and international institutions pledged $280 million in new cash to help stabilize the strife-stricken Georgian economy, the World Bank said Monday.


World Bank director Basil Kavalsky told reporters after a meeting of donors with Georgian officials in Paris that this was 70 percent of the $400 million Tbilisi needs for next year. But he was confident further cash would be forthcoming soon.


Georgian officials told foreign officials, including Russian representatives, that one of the former Soviet Union's worst civil conflicts had helped shrink Georgia's economy to less than a third its former size in four years.


As a result of this, a drastic program of stabilization measures was necessary.


Among sweeping measures undertaken by President Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, have been a 300-fold increase in the price of the staple foodstuff -- bread -- and the privatization of housing and small businesses.


The World Bank said in a statement that since an informal meeting with donors in July the Georgian government had made unexpectedly rapid progress toward an economic stability program backed by the International Monetary Fund.


"The participants commended the authorities for initiating implementation of the tough measures necessary for stabilization," the statement said.


It added that they "agreed that Georgia's program was strong and deserved substantial external support."


Kavalsky stressed this would have to be on concessional terms.


He added that over and above the $400 million of new money, Georgia also had to reschedule some $600 million of debts, mostly for oil and gas, owed to Russia and Turkmenistan.


Deputy Prime Minister Temur Basiliya said Tbilisi had begun debt negotiations with the two former Soviet republics.


Georgia had agreed to talk about restructuring borrowings owed to Turkey, Basiliya said.


The World Bank said Washington had been particularly generous and urged other countries to do likewise.


After three days of United Nations-mediated talks in Geneva last week, officials from Georgia's rebel Abkhazia region refused to pledge to work for the quick return of Georgian refugees who fled or were driven out in months of fighting last year.


In 1993 Abkhazian forces, backed by fighters from neighboring regions of the Caucasus and Russia itself, swept the Georgian army -- and some 250,000 mainly Georgian civilians -- from the region on the northern coast of the Black Sea.