The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Wednesday that it has launched a 500 million US dollar Euro-dollar bond issue through Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch as joint lead managers.

The bonds have a coupon rate of 4.625 percent payable annually and with a maturity date of Feb. 15 2008, said ADB.

The distribution of the bonds was anchored in Asia and supported by European demand, said ADB.

With this issue, ADB has raised thus far in 2005 about 3.9 billion US dollars in long term funds through 59 transactions, including a 1 billion US dollar benchmark transaction and three local currency bond issues in China, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Source: Xinhua