General Capital Increase

General Capital Increase V
Updated: 12 May 2009

Spotlight   ADB Triples Capital to Boost Poverty Reduction Efforts

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GCI in the News •  ADB to Boost Lending Plans After Capital Increase, Nag Says Bloomberg - 2 May 2009 •  ADB $13bn boost to fight crisis Financial Times - 1 May 2009 •  ADB to substantially increase loans after tripling capital base CNN - 30 April 2009 •  ADB plans to triple capital base to $165 billion Reuters - 30 April 2009 • Asian Development Bank triples capital base AFP - 30 April 2009 › More news links

ADB's Board of Governors has agreed to triple ADB’s capital base from $55 billion to $165 billion, giving it much-needed resources to respond to the global economic crisis and to the longer term development needs of Asia and the Pacific.

An overwhelming majority of ADB's 67 member countries endorsed the capital increase. The 200% increase is ADB’s largest, and the first since the last increase in 1994, when ADB boosted its capital by 100%.

Read the:

• In Focus on GCI V
Information on Subscriptions for the Fifth GCI [ PDF ]

New and Ongoing Development Challenges

Despite significant achievements in reducing poverty, ADB's 22 ordinary capital resources borrowing countries still remain home to 877 million people living in absolute poverty, accounting for 64% of the world's poorest people, using the new international poverty line of $1.25 a day.

The capital investments needed to meet the economic, social, and environmental challenges in OCR borrowers are massive. Development finance needs include:

• A resource gap of $53 billion annually to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in OCR borrowers
• Investment of $100 billion annually to address environmental issues
• Infrastructure needs of the region estimated at $4.7 trillion over the next 10 years
• Cost of physical losses due to natural disasters in Asia averaging $39.5 billion a year.

In addition, the global economic crisis is expected to negatively affect the trend of poverty reduction in the region. ADB estimates that a 1% slowdown in growth across the region's economies will cause 21 million people who would have been freed from poverty to remain mired in it.

ADB Adding Value

ADB is transforming itself to add more value to its operations. Over the last several years, ADB has repositioned its policies, planning, and operations to meet the newly emerging development challenges of the Asia and Pacific region. Strategy 2020 sets ADB's strategic agenda and performance goals to be achieved to 2020. ADB is systematically implementing reforms across the institution in its operations, business processes, products and services to deliver aid more efficiently and effectively.

Also, ADB provides its shareholders powerful financial leverage by deploying its capital effectively for economic growth and poverty reduction in the region. The cumulative paid-in portion of the total subscribed capital is currently at about 7%, and as of 31 December 2007 every $1 of this paid-in capital had enabled a committed loan of about $13.