The 2015 Country Portfolio Review Mission (CPRM) of the Asian Development Bank was held on 15-16 December 2015 at the Xiamen National Accounting Institute in Xiamen, PRC. Ten senior officers of national level governments, including Deputy Director General Chen Zhijun of the Department of International Economic and Financial Cooperation of the Ministry of Finance, Director Chen Zhiping of the Foreign Funds Application Audit Department, CNAO, and Deputy Director Zou Wenxin of the Ministry of Agriculture; 44 officers of the ADB, including Country Director Hamid L. Sharif, Director of EATC Robert Guild and other officers; 122 participants of 75 Project Management Offices (PMOs) and 25 provinces joined the meeting. ITDP was invited to join as well, with Xianyuan Zhu attending and involved in the transportation sector discussions.

The CPRM also hosted the 2nd Biannual Loan Award Ceremony to recognize the best performing projects in 2014 which demonstrated effective institutional set up, timely start-up of implementation, smooth disbursement and procurement, strict compliance with loan covenants, and effective delivery of scheduled outputs. From 75 ongoing projects in the PRC which were eligible to participate, only 8 projects, consisting of the top two projects from each sector, were selected as the best performing projects in 2014. The assessment was based on the PMOs’ self-evaluation results that were validated by the ADB’s project officers. Hubei-Yichang Sustainable Urban Transport Project, the main component of which is the ‘gold standard’ Yichang BRT, was one of the winners.

More information on the Yichang BRT is available at here including comparative data, photos and maps.