PHUKET, Thailand (Dow Jones)--Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, said Sunday he's "almost confident" that the regional lender's shareholders will approve a $5 billion capital increase in May.
Speaking at the sidelines of a regional meeting here, Kuroda said the bank is currently finalizing talks with key funding countries, including Japan and U.S., to complete its first capital increase in some 15 years.
The increase will allow the ADB to boost its lending capacity to an average of $13 billion from some $9 billion currently, he said. In the absence of this increase, he added, the bank would be forced to cut new lending to around $4 billion annually, due to its internal requirements to keep strong capital ratios.
Kuroda said if the capital increase goes ahead as expected, the ADB may boost lending this year to $11 billion from a planned $9 billion, fulfilling part of the increased demand for ADB loans among the current financial crisis.
He said bank borrowers have asked for $15 billion in new loans for this year.
-By David Roman, Dow Jones Newswires, 65 6415 4045, david.roman@dowjones.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 22, 2009 08:09 ET (13:09 GMT) | 
