The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) new lending and grant operations in 2018 grew to a record $21.6 billion, an increase of nearly 10% from the $19.7 billion in the previous year, ADB President, Takehiko Nakao told the opening session of the Board of Governors at the 52nd ADB Annual Meeting in Fiji on Friday. Compared to $13.9 billion in 2013 this is an increase of 55%. Such an expansion became possible due to the much larger equity from the successful merger of the ordinary capital resources balance sheet and Asian Development Fund (ADF) concessional lending operations in 2017, he said.
