The board of directors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) gave a green light to a $499 million loan to help improve air quality in Beijing, Tianjin and the surrounding Hebei Province in North China, the bank said on Thursday.
The loan is the third batch of a series of loans in a multi-year, multi-industry support program, according to a press release from the lender.
The first loan worth $300 million was approved in 2015 and was used to boost policy reform and supervision capacity in Hebei Province, while the second loan, worth $499 million, was used to improve financing channels for small and medium-sized enterprises in the region.
Although China is making efforts to combat air pollution, it is still a severe problem in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.
The third loan will be used to improve air quality via three categories of funds to help emitters and companies to adopt advanced technologies to reduce emissions, it said.
The ADB hopes these funds will attract the interest of China's institutional investors, commercial banks, and local governments so that they might also invest in the projects.
