Financial institutions back nation's fight against COVID-19

Multilateral financial institutions showed their support for China amid an outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia and voiced their confidence in the resilience of the country's economy.

The New Development Bank, a multilateral development bank established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, said it is ready to make its contribution to the fight by the nation against the epidemic.

"The NDB is fully committed to supporting China in the time of calamity. The bank stands ready to provide its full support, including emergency financing, and now is in the process of consultations with the Chinese government concerning specific actions," the bank said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The bank also said it highly appreciates China's great efforts and effective measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

"We are confident in China's epidemic prevention and control ability as well as measures taken by the Chinese government so far to prevent the spread of infection, including the allocation of more than 71 billion yuan ($10.2 billion) in funds to contain the coronavirus," the NDB said.

By Thursday, the death toll from the outbreak in the Chinese mainland rose to 1,380. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases increased to 63,851, the National Health Commission said.

Earlier this week, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank said it stands ready to support China through public health infrastructure loans for the government's immediate and longer-term public health needs. The loans are subject to the approval of its board of directors.

"People from over 50 nations work at the AIIB and we have all made China our home. With the full impacts of this epidemic still unknown, we want to do our part as residents of China to help stop its spread," said AIIB President Jin Liqun.

"In line with the AIIB's mission, we will also work with the government of China to identify effective public health infrastructure investments that will prevent the rapid spread of future outbreaks."

In a written reply to China Daily on Tuesday, the bank said: "The AIIB is still in discussion with the Chinese government on the content of the emergency loan. At this juncture, we are quite open in terms of instruments to be deployed.

"As a new bank with focused mandate on infrastructure financing, we are keen to work with multilateral development banks, private partners and other financiers on the public health infrastructure investment to bolster China and other members' ability to respond to public health emergencies."

On Tuesday, the World Bank Group said it stands together with the people of China and other countries dealing with impacts of COVID-19 at this time.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Feb 3: "We support China's efforts to respond by taking measures with all the strength of its health system, but also by the recent fiscal, monetary and financial actions. We are confident in the resilience of China's economy."

Before the NDB and AIIB showed their willingness to contribute, the Asian Development Bank approved $2 million in new funding on Feb 7 to support efforts to combat the spread of the disease.

The funds will supplement ongoing regional technical assistance and strengthen the response capacity in China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.