NDB approves RMB 7 billion emergency assistance program loan to China to fight COVID-19 outbreak

The Board of Directors of the New Development Bank approved RMB 7 billion Emergency Assistance Program Loan to the People’s Republic of China. The Program is aimed at helping the Chinese Government in combating the outbreak of COVID-19 and it will contribute to China’s ongoing efforts to address the health and economic consequences of the outbreak.

The Program is NDB’s first emergency assistance program in response to an outbreak in one of its member countries and is also NDB’s largest loan to date. It will finance urgent and unexpected public health expenditures. The Program will focus on three provinces in China, including Hubei, Guangdong and Henan that are hit the hardest by COVID-19. The Program will support these three provinces in financing their most urgent needs for fighting the spread of COVID-19, and reducing the adverse impacts of the outbreak on their local economies.

The Program will contribute to reducing the loss of human lives and to improving resilience of the public health sector in the three provinces, particularly to strengthening their health emergency response system. The positive impacts will include mitigation of adverse social and economic impacts from the outbreak and recovery of social and economic activities.

Original source: NDB
Published on 20 March 2020