ADB to give Pakistan up to US$2.5 billion in flood relief

The Asian Development Bank ADB will give Pakistan up to US$2.5 billion in flood relief support, Pakistan's finance ministry said on Wednesday.

The announcement came after ADB's country director Yong Ye met Pakistan's Finance Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad.

ADB will provide flood relief to Pakistan at a cost of $2.3 billion to US $2.5 billion, the ministry said.

It said that the money includes US $1.5 billion for one of its aid programmes, such as Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Expenditure BRACE, which will be put before the ADB board for approval during October.

The floods caused by abnormal monsoon rains and glacial melt have submerged huge swathes of the South Asian country and killed nearly 1,700 people, the majority of them children and women.