(Yicai Global) June 18 -- The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has approved a USD750 million loan to help the Indian government better aid vulnerable households during the Covid-19 pandemic after lending USD500 million to the sub-continental nation last month.

The money will go toward economic aid for businesses and cash-strapped families and helping shore up India’s healthcare systems, the AIIB said online. The Asian Development Bank is co-financing the loan.

“Many of the world’s low and middle-income countries are still in the early stages of the health crisis but are already feeling the impacts of the pandemic,” AIIB’s DJ Pandian, vice president of investment operations, said in the statement. “This poses an enormous risk for millions across India who have only recently emerged from poverty.”

India has some 354,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases to date and has registered 11,903 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The pandemic has led to the International Monetary Fund revising its economic growth forecast for the country’s fiscal year 2021 to 1.9 percent, down from 5.8 percent in its January 2020 prediction.

The loan is part of the AIIB’s Covid-19 Crisis Recovery Facility set up in April as part of a coordinated international response to counter the pandemic and help AIIB members deal with urgent needs regarding their economic, financial and public health. The CRF initially began with USD5 billion but now has USD10 billion to lend out.

The AIIB also issued its first panda bond -- a yuan-denominated bill from a non-Chinese issuer -- on June 11. The three-year bonds carry a 2.4 percent coupon and their proceeds will go toward funding some of the lender’s projects, including the CRF.

Editor: James Boynton