The Asian Development Bank has decided to offer trade finance in Chinese yuan and Indian rupees in a bid to support intraregional trade and combat dollar liquidity shortages, the Dow Jones news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a senior official at the bank.

The development bank had received significant demand for rupee trade finance from Bhutan and Nepal, and more demand for yuan trade finance from a number of countries, ADB's head of trade finance Steven Beck said in an interview with Dow Jones.

ADB's trade finance programme, which provides loans and guarantees to businesses via a network of over 200 partner banks, currently operates only in dollars, euros and yen. Last year, the programme supported more than US$3.5 billion (S$4.4 billion) worth of transactions, the report said.

The ADB's Board of Directors Tuesday decided to indefinitely extend the programme, which had been due to expire at the end of 2013.

TODAY