The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Wednesday the volume of its operations in 2005 increased by 30 percent from the previous year to 7.4 billion U.S. dollars.

The bank cited its Annual Report 2005, expected to be released at its 39th Annual Meeting scheduled for May 3 to 6 in Hyderabad, India, as saying that 5.8 billion U.S. dollars of loans and grants were approved for 64 projects in 2005, with lending making up 78 percent of total operations.

Grants approved sharply increased from 104.4 million U.S. dollars in 2004 to 1.2 billion in 2005, with almost half the amount from the Asian Tsunami Fund and another 80 million U.S. dollars from the Pakistan Earthquake Fund, said ADB.

The 5.8 billion U.S. dollars were divided into 72 loans for 64 projects in the public and private sectors in 2005, with average loan size in 2005 being 81 million U.S. dollars as compared with 66 million U.S. dollars in 2004.

The largest borrower in 2005 was China, which received 1.5 billion U.S. dollars or 26 percent of the total, followed by Indonesia with 1.1 billion U.S. dollars and Pakistan with 776 million U.S. dollars, said ADB.

The transport and communications sector continued to receive the largest share of lending at 1.7 billion U.S. dollars, or 30 percent, followed by energy with 18.5 percent.

Sustainable economic growth was most prevalent and was associated with 53 projects, said ADB.

Source: Xinhua