The Asian Development Bank's (ADB) has approved the allocation of 3.4 billion USD to help Asian countries respond to the global economic crisis.

Among the total, 3 billion USD is used to establish a Countercyclical Support Facility, the bank said in a press release on June 16.

The source will be used to provide short-term, fast-disbursing loans for the ADB's developing member countries to ramp up fiscal spending to cope with the crisis, especially for those that lack financial means to do so amid tight global credit conditions and a sharp increase in funding costs.

Each qualified member can get a maximum of 500 million USD from the facility, ADB said, adding that the fund would be available to the developing members that qualify for loans from the ADB's Ordinary Capital Resources (OCR).

The OCR is a pool of ADB funds for middle-income countries to borrow at near market terms.

Those that have no access to OCR will benefit from the other part of the allocation worth 400 million USD. This fund will go to the Asian Development Fund (ADF) and will be provided in the form of concessional loans and grants to the ADB's low-income developing members with limited debt repayment capacity./.