SINGAPORE: The Asian Development Bank will offer Pakistan a $2 billion emergency loan to help repair the damage to infrastructure from the worst ever floods to hit the country, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
It quoted the bank's director-general for central and west Asia, Juan Miranda, as saying the bank would also set up a trust fund to channel donor funds for reconstruction.
The United Nations said earlier that nearly half the $459 million needed to fund initial relief efforts had been secured after days of lobbying donors and warnings that the country faces a spiralling humanitarian catastrophe.
But only a small minority of the six million Pakistanis desperate for food and clean water have received help after floods that have killed up to 1,600 people and made two million homeless.
Miranda said he would meet President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday to discuss terms of the concessionary loan.
Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said the cost of rebuilding could reach $15 billion. – Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment