(Yicai Global) April 17 -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is doubling the value of funds available in its Covid-19 crisis recovery facility to USD10 billion to meet increasing demand, the multilateral lender said in a statement today.

The AIIB will allocate funds for emergency relief in health infrastructure and pandemic preparedness, liquidity support and immediate fiscal and budgetary support in tandem with other multilateral banks to address the human and financial impacts of the virus, it said.

“We are facing a formidable challenge, with the depth and severity of the crisis growing with each passing day,” AIIB President Jin Liqun said. “It was imperative that we respond to the urgent and extraordinary scale of demand from our members to significantly increase the scope of our response.”

The AIIB is currently reviewing projects from several of its members, many in collaboration with other multilateral development banks. These include a USD500 million project in India to buy equipment and detection capacity and strengthen its national health systems, a USD500 million program to alleviate working capital shortages at two Turkish development banks, and Indonesia’s USD250 million effort to improve hospital readiness, enhance pandemic preparedness and strengthen testing.

The Beijing-based lender, founded in 2016, also approved a USD355 million emergency loan for China on April 3. It proposed the same day to create a recovery facility worth USD5 billion for public and private sector companies struggling as a result of the pandemic to join what the G20 dubbed a global coordinated response to the virus.

Editor: James Boynton