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MADRID, May 6, 2008 (Reuters) — The Asian Development Bank said on Tuesday it would give up to $500 million in emergency loans to regional economies hardest hit by the food price crisis and double investment in the farm sector to $2 billion in 2009.
"I am pleased to announce that ADB will provide $500 million as immediate budgetary support to the hardest hit countries so that they can bring food to the tables of the vulnerable, poor and needy," ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said.
"We will also double our lending to agricultural and natural resources (projects), including rural infrastructure to over $2 billion over the next one year," he told a news conference.
Kuroda spoke to journalists at the close of four days of meetings of Asian finance leaders in Madrid at the Bank's annual meeting.
The fight against soaring food prices to ensure one billion poor Asians living on less than $2 a day do not slip back into hunger and malnutrition had topped the agenda.
