Takehiko Nakao, President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), announced at a news conference in Azerbaijan on the first day of the annual meeting of the ADB's Board of Governors on May 2, that the ADB is set to provide joint project financing with the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and expand its annual credit line by 50 percent to $20 billion (2.4 trillion yen) in 2017. He stressed, however, that partnering with the AIIB does not mean that the Manila-based bank will relax its own lending guidelines.