The Asian Development Bank will raise around $3 billion in local currency bonds in Indonesia and Kazakhstan before the end of the year. This is the first time the ADB has issued a bond on behalf of Kazakhstan. The ADB has already raised funds worth $2 billion this year. Standard and Poor's director of sovereign ratings in Singapore, Takahira Ogawa said that there is increasing interest being in local currency debt from investors globally. ADB's head of funding Juan Limandibrata, said the bank will offer at least $1 billion of dollar-denominated bonds to international investors in the second half of 2006.
Chinese commercial banks' bad loans declined by 0.6% during the first quarter of 2006, according to the latest figures from the China Banking Regulatory Commission. At the end of March of this year, commercial banks operating in China, including foreign banks, had bad loans of 1.31 trillion yuan, which accounted for 8% of the banks' total loans. The ratio of bad loans for state-owned commercial banks stood at 9.8%, declining to less than 10% for the first time. However, CBRC officials warned that bad loans might increase, as the government restructures the economy.
Poland's Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz discussed the possibilities for foreign investment in Poland with a Middle Eastern and Central Asian investors yesterday. The group included the Arabian Monetary Agency, Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, Kuwait Investment Office, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, and HSBC. "Poland has been an attractive investment destination for a long time; but it is especially true in 2006 due to the country's very dynamic economic growth," Marcinkiewicz said.
Estonian President Arnold Ruutel will visit Georgia today. In his meeting with Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili he will discuss the two countries’ political, economic and cultural ties, and Estonian cooperation with Georgia in the context of the European Union's neighborhood policy. Tomorrow Ruutel will open a Georgian-Estonian business forum and tour Georgia's historic capital Mtskheta.
The Inter-American Development Bank will allocate up to $500 million to develop 25 projects in Peru during 2006, the IADB’s Peru representative Christof Kuechueman said. This is about the same amount that Peru received from the IADB last year. The grant will finance mainly roads in the Peruvian jungle, science and technology development and small and medium-sized enterprises. Funds will also be allocated to judicial reform. The IADB predicts that Peru will grow at 5% this year.
Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders are preparing to visit Europe later this week to attend two summit meetings as part of the region's "continuing efforts to strengthen and deepen its economic and political relations with its external partners". The prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago; the Presidents of Guyana and Surinam; and Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington, will attend summits in Spain and Austria. Support programmes to hel Caricom economies after the end of preferential trade agreements for the banana and sugar sectors will be discussed.