The Asian Development Bank (ADB) extended a total of $940 million worth of official development assistance (ODA) to the Philippines last year.

In a recent report, the ADB said it approved $10.6 billion worth of sovereign and non-sovereign loans for 72 projects in Asia in 2008. The amount included $620 million sovereign loans for three Philippine government programs and $320 million non-sovereign loans for two local companies involved in energy projects.

This placed the Philippines as the fifth-largest recipient of ADB loans, after India (2.877 billion), China ($1.75 billion), Pakistan ($1.171 billion), and Indonesia ($1.085 billion).

According to the ADB report, the $940 million ODA it lent to the Philippines last year was to finance five projects with a total cost of $2.658 billion. In the said projects, the Philippine government would shoulder a counterpart fund of $108.4 million while other financial institutions would contribute $1.7 billion.

The three sovereign loans awarded by the ADB to the Philippines included the $250 million for the Development Policy Support Program, $70 million for Agrarian Reform Communities Project II, and $300 million for Governance in Justice Sector Reform Program.

These loans accounted for 7 percent of the $8.7 billion sovereign loans extended by ADB to its recipient countries last year.

Meanwhile, non-sovereign loans approved in the Philippines in 2008 included the $200 million for the acquisition and rehabilitation of the Masinloc coal-fired thermal power plant, and the $120 million for the privatization and refurbishment of the Calaca coal-fired thermal power plant.

These two loans represented six percent of the total $1.9 billion non-sovereign loans approved by the ADB during the year.

Also, the ADB approved a $1 million grant intended for a project called Developing Microinsurance and another $9.41 million worth of technical assistance grants for 11 projects in the Philippines last year.

The ADB is the third-largest source of foreign assistance in the Philippines, next to the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank.