HYDERABAD, India, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is holding its 39th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors on May 3-6 at Hyderabad, India's high-tech city, to review its operations in the past year and work out guidance for the institution's administrative, financial and operational directions.

    The ADB is a multilateral development finance institution in the Asia-Pacific region. It now groups 65 members, 47 from the region.

    Its Board of Governors, comprising one representative from each member, meets annually in a member country in late April or early May, with participation of finance and economic planning ministers, senior government officials, representatives of the multilateral development bank community, investment bankers, representatives of non-government organizations and members of the media.

    The ADB president, elected by the Board of Governors, is the chairperson of the Board of Directors. The current president is Haruhito Kuroda from Japan.

    With its headquarters in Manila, capital of the Philippines, the ADB has 26 other offices around the world, with a total employment of more than 2,000 from over 50 countries.

    The regional finance institution's main functions are to extend loans and equity investments to its developing members for their economic and social development, and provide technical assistance for the planning and execution of development projects and facilitates investment of public and private capital for development.

    ADB's vision is a region free of poverty. Its mission is to help its developing member countries reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their citizens. After its adoption of "poverty reduction strategy" in 1999, it began focusing its work toward eliminating poverty in the region.

    ADB's main instruments for providing help to its developing member countries are policy dialogue, loans, technical assistance, grants, guarantees, equity investments.

    ADB's annual lending volume is typically about 6 billion U.S. dollars, with technical assistance usually totaling about 180 million dollars a year.

    The ADB operations are financed by issuing bonds on the world's capital markets, recycling repayments and receiving contributions from members. Its lending is mainly from Ordinary Capital Resources comprising paid-in capital, reserves, funds raised through borrowings and accumulated retained income. It also has Special Funds which comprise the Asian Development Fund, the Technical Assistance Special Fund and the Japan Special Fund. Enditem

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