People in the Philippines wear masks to prevent spread of COVID-19 (Photo: Xinhua/VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Philippines have signed a 500 million USD loan to help the country's efforts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has taken a heavy toll on the poor.
The Philippines' Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement that the country has accessed the fresh financing package worth million 500 million USD from the ADB to help support the Philippines’ immediate budgetary requirements to address the coronavirus crisis with the signing of a loan agreement for the Expanded Social Assistance Project (ESAP).
Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said that the budget-support loan will not only help bridge Philippines' funding gap for its COVID-19 response but will also strengthen its social protection programme as it restarts economy and help people get back on their feet amid the pandemic.
According to the DOF, the ESAP, which builds on a decade of ADB's support for social protection programs in the Philippines, aims to assist the government in the continued implementation of its conditional cash transfer initiative dubbed the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Programme (4Ps).
The 500 million USD loan aims to continue funding education and health grants to eligible 4Ps household-beneficiaries for a period of four years starting 2020.
The ESAP loan, which covers a maturity period of 29 years inclusive of an eight-year grace period, brings to 2.6 billion USD the total financing package extended by the ADB so far to the Philippines for its programmes to address the COVID-19 crisis./.
VNA
