ADB gives $188.6m loans to Indonesia

ADB gives $188.6m loans to Indonesia

MANILA: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced on Saturday
that it was extending two loans worth US$188.6 million to
Indonesia.

The first package, of two loans totaling $100 million, will go
to improving primary health care in the Indonesian provinces of
Bangka Belitung, Central and South Kalimantan, East and West Nusa
Tenggara, Gorontalo, South Sulawesi and South Sumatra.

Another loan package, totaling $88.6 million, will go to
upgrading housing in Indonesia's urban areas, including slums and
squatter settlements, the ADB said in a statement from its
headquarters in the Philippines.

The project will also fund investments to provide links to
citywide networks of urban services such as feeder roads while a
portion of the ADB loan will be "re-lent to central financial
institutions to establish a housing financing system," for the
poor.

About 40 percent of Indonesia's population of 212 million live
in cities.

Conditions in many urban areas have continued to deteriorate,
aggravated by the impact of the 1997 economic crisis, the ADB
said, noting that only one third of the urban population has
access to piped water.