20000419

ADB lending

to developing

states falls

by 16.8 pc in '99

MANILA: Asian Development Bank (ADB) lending fell 16.8 percent from a year earlier to $ 4.9 billion in 1999 as regional economies recovered from financial crisis, the bank said in an annual report.

About 40 percent of the loans went to projects aimed at battling Asia's massive poverty in line with a radical shift in the Manila-based bank's strategy to focus on reducing the number of Asians surviving on the equivalent of one US dollar a day.

Bank officials said 70 percent of the world's poor live in Asia.

The ADB lent $ 9.4 billion as the crisis took hold in 1997, the bulk of which went to bail out countries hardest hit by the turmoil. Lending levels declined to $ 5.9 billion in 1998.

The bank said 66 loans for 52 projects comprised last year's loans. Nearly $ 100 million went to an Asian currency support facility in the form of technical assistance and interest payment aid to the crisis-stricken countries, it said.

Interest-free loans from the concessional Asian development fund rose 8.4 percent to more than $ 1 billion.

China topped the list of borrowers, receiving 25 percent of total loans, or $ 1.2 billion, said the report, released ahead of the annual meeting of the bank's board of governors from May 6-8 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The other top borrowers were Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Thailand and Bangladesh.

Amongst sectors, social infrastructure received the highest loan share with 28 percent.

The bank also arranged co-financing agreements totalling $ 3 billion.

ADB is subscribed to by 58 member countries, with Japan and the United States as the biggest single shareholders.

It had an authorised capital of $ 48 billion at the end of last fiscal year.ÑAFP