Asian Development Bank (ADB) has remained one of the Pakistan’s largest development partners and has provided more than $27 billion in loans and over US $ 531 million in grants since 1966.
According to ADB’s annual report 2015, since becoming a founding member of the ADB in 1966, the government of Pakistan has worked with the bank to strengthen the country’s key infrastructure, boost social and development safeguards and promote information sharing with other countries.
The report further said that in 2015, the ADB approved the country’s partnership strategy (CPS) 2015-19 for Pakistan, with a provisional assistance package of $3.65 billion for sovereign operations in 2016-16.
“The new CPS continues a focus on infrastructure development and institutional reforms. Its outlines financial assistance in six key sectors of energy, transport, agriculture, natural resources and rural development, water and other urban infrastructure and services, public sector management and finance,” the ADB report said.
The report further said that the cumulative disbursements to Pakistan for lending and grants financed by ordinary capital resources, the Asian Development Fund, and other special funds amounted to $19.59 billion.
The ADB report further said that the bank’s projects in the energy sector comprise over half the ADB portfolio for Pakistan.
“In 2015, ADB approved a combined loan assistance of nearly $1.4 billion for two energy sector programmes,” the report said. It further said that a multi-tranche financing facility (MFF) of $990 million will help introduce an advanced electricity metering system for power distribution companies, reducing losses and boosting revenues collection.
The ADB report said that assistance of $400 million was also approved to reform policy and build an affordable and secure energy sector.
It added that the ongoing ADB investment in the energy sector included a loan for the Jamshoro power generation project and five MFFs for other projects.
The report said the ADB also provided support for energy planning, capacity development and promotion of regional trading initiatives for power and gas.