ADB to boost financial firepower, efficiency

FINANCIAL leveraging is the name of the game so far as Asian Development Bank president Takehiko Nakao is concerned when it comes to increasing the bank's impact on economic development in Asia, especially in the area of infrastructure. Leveraging plus "increased efficiency", as he puts it.

Faced with the arrival of a newcomer on the Asian development banking scene in the shape of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which some suggest could "poach" projects and staff from the ADB, Mr Nakao is adopting a positive and pragmatic attitude.

"The Asia Pacific region needs money," he told BT in an interview prior to the ADB's annual meeting in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku over the weekend.