The Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $300 million equivalent loan facility with Beijing Capital Co., Ltd. to support water and wastewater service upgrades in the western region of the country.
The assistance will enable better quality services to be provided in areas where there are difficulties attracting private capital investments. The assistance includes a dual currency dollar-yuan loan equivalent to $150 million from ADB’s ordinary resources, and a complementary loan of the same amount raised from participating banks, with ADB acting as lender of record.
“The project will help provide reliable and efficient access to water and wastewater treatment in smaller communities in the west,” said Hisaka Kimura, East Asia Unit Head of ADB’s Private Sector Operations Department. “Standalone small-scale projects are relatively expensive, so by bundling them together using multi-sector concessions, the project will be able to achieve greater overall efficiencies and quality.”
Western parts of the country face rising demand for improved water supplies and wastewater management services to meet higher environmental standards. The scale of unmet need, combined with increasing levels of pollution, highlights the urgency of attracting more capital investment into environmental infrastructure.
The project will build, expand, and rehabilitate water and wastewater treatment facilities across a number of provinces, with Beijing Capital tailoring its technologies to suit the size and needs of the different target communities. ADB’s presence in the project will also encourage future public-private partnerships that can help address regional imbalances in infrastructure.
ADB, based in Manila, is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Established in 1966, ADB in December 2016 will mark 50 years of development partnership in the region. It is owned by 67 members—48 from the region. In 2015, ADB assistance totaled $27.2 billion, including cofinancing of $10.7 billion.
