The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved a $ 100 million loan for Pakistan.
The bank’s board of directors Friday approved its first four loans totaling $ 509 million to finance four projects, including one in Pakistan.
Three of the four projects are co-financing operations with Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) partners, said the global lender in a website post on Friday.
The three other approved loans are a $ 216.5 million loan for Indonesia, $ 165 million loans for a Bangladesh project – the first batch of loan for the country from the China-led development bank and a $ 27.5 million loan for Tajikistan.
AIIB President Jin Liqun noted, “I am delighted to announce that AIIB’s Board of Directors has today just six months after the Bank’s inauguration approved the first group of loans. These projects in the energy, urban development and transport sectors will help bridge the region’s critical infrastructure financing gap and strengthen regional connectivity. We are very pleased that three of these projects are joint co-financing operations with our development partners, ADB, EBRD and World Bank. This has been an outstanding and tangible demonstration of multilateral cooperation that has expanded the pool of financing available to our joint member countries. We are working on a number of additional projects and look forward to bringing them to our board for its approval later this year. The bank, which supports infrastructure development and regional connectivity in Asia, is targeting lending of approximately $ 1.2 billion in 2016.
The approved loans are: $ 216.5 million loan for a National Slum Upgrading Project in Indonesia, expected to be co-financed with the World Bank; $ 100 million loan to finance the Shorkot-Khanewal Section of National Motorway M-4 in Pakistan co-financed with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID); and $ 27.5 million loan for the Dushanbe-Uzbekistan Border Road Improvement Project in Tajikistan co-financed with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); $ 165 million loan for a Power Distribution System Upgrade and Expansion Project in Bangladesh.