ADB operations reach record $31.5 bn in 2016

Approvals of ADB loans, grants, technical assistance, and co-financing have been growing steadily over the years as development needs in the region continue to rise.
“The increase in our development financing to Asia and the Pacific is reflective of our strong commitment to reducing poverty and improving people’s lives in the region,” said ADB president Takehiko Nakao. 
“As ADB celebrates 50 years of development partnership with its member countries, we will strive to remain the region’s premier development bank by providing financing, knowledge, and partnership. 
“Asia is growing at a steady pace, but more needs to be done to achieve development that is both sustainable and inclusive,” Nakao added. “ADB will continue to improve by becoming a stronger, better, and faster bank to help the region achieve its development objectives.” 
The region faces many challenges such as implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, increasing inequality, rapid urbanisation, ageing, and disaster risk management. Approvals of loans and grants for sovereign (government) and non-sovereign (primarily the private sector) operations by the ADB itself reached a record $17.5 billion – a 9-per-cent increase from $16.0 billion in 2015. 
Non-concessional loans from the ADB’s Ordinary Capital Resources (OCR) amounted to $14.4 billion. Concessional loans and grants from the Asian Development Fund (ADF) reached $3.1 billion, with $2.6 billion going to loans and $518 million to grants. Technical assistance, meanwhile, increased by around 20 per cent to $170 million from 2015’s $141-million figure. 
Among the ADB’s operational highlights last year were the approval of several groundbreaking projects. These included the contingent disaster risk financing in the Cook Islands, the first privately financed solar project in Cambodia, results-based lending for an elderly-care project in China, the development of India’s first coastal industrial corridor, and the $500-million counter-cyclical support to Azerbaijan. 
The ADB’s Office of Public-Private Partnership entered three new transaction advisory mandates to prepare and structure PPP projects in 2016. 
The bank says the strong showing of its operations was based on the larger financing capacity generated by the anticipated merger of the ADB’s two main financial instruments – ADF and OCR – which formally took effect on January 1, 2017. With this innovative reform, ADB’s annual approvals of loans and grants will increase up to $20 billion by 2020. 
For the period 2017-2020, a successful ADF replenishment, concluded in May 2016, will allow the ADB substantially to increase support to the region’s poorest countries. The replenished ADF will also enable the bank to provide grant resources for disaster risk management and regional health initiatives.
Total disbursements of ADB loans and grants reached $12.5 billion in 2016 – the highest ever. This strong performance is tied to the reforms the ADB has implemented to fast-track procurement and implementation processes, it says.
Co-financing also expanded, reaching $13.9 billion in 2016 from $10.7 billion in 2015, growth of 29 per cent. This is on the back of ADB’s greater partnerships and collaboration with various development stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region. 
Some of the strong partnerships the ADB undertook in 2016 included co-financing with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank for a road project in Pakistan and a natural-gas project in Bangladesh.