Asian Development Bank (ADB) has signed an agreement to provide a $150m loan to the Government of Sri Lanka to upgrade the country’s road network.

The Tranche 2 loan agreement for the Second Integrated Road Investment Programme will continue ADB’s assistance in the upgrades to Sri Lanka’s rural road network.

The agreement was signed by the secretary to the Treasury of the Ministry of Finance Samaratunga for the Government of Sri Lanka and the officer-in-charge of ADB’s Sri Lanka Resident Mission Manjula Amerasinghe.

ADB and Road Development Authority chairman Nihal Sooriyarachchi also signed the project agreement.

Road Development Authority is serving as the project’s implementing agency.

ADB approved the Second Integrated Road Investment Programme on 29 September 2017.

The programme will see the rehabilitation and improvement of around 3,400km of rural access roads and 340km of national roads in the Eastern, Northern and Uva Sri Lankan provinces, as well as a section of the Western province.

It will improve the capacity of road agencies with respect to safeguards, road safety, maintenance, research capacity, road design and construction.

The programme will also improve the accessibility of Sri Lanka’s road network, increasing the involvement of the rural population in economic and social development across the country.

Scheduled for completion in 2027, the programme will deliver financing in five tranches until 2021.

This is the second of such tranches and the government will meet $21.8m of this tranche programme cost.

In October 2017, ADB agreed to provide a $900m loan to upgrade road infrastructure in Sri Lanka, aimed at improving networks and connecting rural populations to jobs and services.