CAIRO, May 25 (AFP) - The African Development Bank is set this year to raise its capital by 35 percent to 29.5 billion dollars now that there is enough support to change its shareholding structure, ADB Group president Omar Kabbaj said Tuesday. The bank's governors adopted the capital increase last year but member states had to approve amendments decreasing the African share to 60 percent from 66 percent while increasing the non-African share to 40 percent, bank officials said. "The requisite voting majorities for the amendments to the agreement establishing the bank have now been secured," Kabbaj told the boards of governors of the ADB and the African Development Fund (ADF) at their annual meetings here. However, the voting deadline is June 30, and the amendments will go into force no later than September 30, bank officials said. It will represent the fifth capital increase since the bank was founded in Abidjan in 1964. The bank's previous authorized capital amounted to 22.8 billion dollars at the end of December 1998. In January, the ADB also agreed with its development partners to replenish the ADF, amounting to 3.4 billion dollars, to finance concessional operations from 1999-2001. Total bank group approvals in 1998 for loans, grants, debt alleviation and equity investments amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, with the ADB accounting for 54 percent and the ADF the balance, Kabbaj said in his opening speech. The bank group is now positioned to lend around 2.5 billion dollars annually after increasing co-financing operations with private commercial institutions as well as bilateral agencies and multilateral institutions, he said. The bank will gradually increase financing to the private sector to fulfill its new vision statement to achieve sustained economic growth and reduce poverty, he said. The statement has to be approved by the board of governors. The value of direct private sector loans and investments rose from less than three percent of bank group approvals to more than nine percent in 1998, Kabbaj said. Bank officials added such approvals could reach 25 percent in the five years. ADB shareholders comprise 53 countries in Africa and 24 countries from the Americas, Europe and Asia. The ADB Group comprises the ADB, ADF and the Nigeria Trust Fund, which is administered by the bank.  