The approvals went down from $13.9bn the previous year.

ADB president Takehiko Nakao said: “ADB will come up with additional concrete measures to increase disbursements and co-financing, building on the new procurement policy approved in 2017 and ongoing efforts to leverage resources.”

In a statement issued last week, the ADB said approvals of loans and grants from its own resources hit a record $19.1bn last year – a 9% increase from the $17.5bn handed out in 2016.

It also said it is well on its way to meet its $20bn target by 2020.

“The strong figures for ADB operations in the past year were supported by the successful merger of ADB’s concessional Asian Development Fund lending operations with the Ordinary Capital Resources balance sheet—which took effect at the start of 2017,” said Nakao.

“This will allow us to deliver a much higher level of assistance to our developing member countries for years to come without seeking a capital increase.”

The bank also said its co-financing approvals declined to $9.5bn in 2017, from $13.9bn the year before, due to delays of large expected projects.

The figures also showed that the bank’s climate financing reached a record $4.5bn, an increase of 21% from 2016.

It aims to reach a $6bn climate financing target by 2020.