BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China Development Bank's (CDB) loans to the conservation and green development of the Yangtze River amounted to 182.2 billion yuan (about 26.42 billion U.S. dollars) in the first five months.
As of the end of May, outstanding loans to 11 provincial-level regions along the Yangtze River Economic Belt topped 4 trillion yuan in total, according to the CDB.
The bank will continue to support the conservation and high-quality development of the belt for the next step, it said.
The CDB, the world's largest development finance institution, mainly deploys the loans to major projects in fields of environmental protection and restoration.
China issued a development plan for the Yangtze River Economic Belt in September 2016 and a guideline for green development of the belt in 2017.
The Yangtze River Economic Belt consists of nine provinces and two municipalities that cover roughly one-fifth of China's land. It has a population of 600 million and generates more than 40 percent of the country's GDP.
