ADB to provide 4 billion USD assistance to Indonesia

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide about 4 billion U.S. dollars in loans and grants for supporting Indonesia's reform program and efforts to eradicate poverty from 2006 to 2009, Vice President of the bank C. Lawrence Greenwood said here Tuesday.

"ADB's new strategy in Indonesia illustrates our confidence in the country's future. The government is on the right track with its reform program and ADB stand ready to offer its full support," Greenwood told a press conference in Jakarta.

The plan proposes 3.82 billion U.S. dollars in loans and some 47.6 million U.S. dollars in grants, he said.

The program will focus on infrastructure development, improving the financial sector, supporting the decentralization, accelerating the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals ( MDGs) and environmental protection, the vice president of the bank said.

"A key impediment to equitable economic growth and development is corruption, and this program will focus on that issue in all loans and grants," he added.

Indonesia enjoyed rapid economic growth and a decline in poverty in the early 1990s until the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Since the crisis , a focus on debt reduction has reduced spending on economic and social development.

The Indonesian government's medium-term development plan, supported by the ADB, seeks to settle these problems and to boost the country's economy, creating jobs, and improve progress towards the achievement of the MDGs.

Source: Xinhua