Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Why is in news? India emerges as Sri Lanka’s largest bilateral lender overtaking China

• Since the beginning of 2022, Sri Lanka has experienced an escalating economic crisis and the government has defaulted on its foreign loans.
• Sri Lanka is battling a severe economic crisis with food and fuel scarcity affecting a large number of the people in the island nation.
• India has been at forefront of extending economic assistance to Sri Lanka as per their requirements and is one of the countries that have provided the maximum amount of assistance in time of need.
• India had provided nearly 4 billion dollars in food and financial assistance to Sri Lanka. On August 22, India handed over 21,000 tonnes of fertilizer to crisis-ridden Sri Lanka.
• India has emerged as the largest bilateral lender for Sri Lanka, overtaking China.
• India has provided a total of 968 million US dollars in loans to the island nation in four months of 2022.
• Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been the largest multilateral lender in the past five years and disbursed funds amounting to 610 million dollars in 2021.
• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered Manila, Philippines.
• It supports projects in developing member countries that create economic and development impact, delivered through both public and private sector operations, advisory services, and knowledge support.
• From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 68 members.
• ADB's five largest shareholders are Japan and the United States (each with 15.6% of total shares), the People's Republic of China (6.4%), India (6.3%), and Australia (5.8%).
• The specific purpose is to foster the economic growth of the Asian and the Pacific regions. Its basic objective is to encourage economic and financial co-operation among the member countries. It helps them to start new projects without any fear of lack of finance.