SOUTH KOREA: India Finance Minister Nitmala Sitharaman Tuesday met Asian Development Bank president Masatsugu Asakawa and urged the multilateral funding agency to support India with more concessional climate finance, as the country's economic progress can have high positive impact regionally and globally.
FM Sitharaman stated that India continues to be the most significant nation for ADB's sovereign and non-sovereign activities during the bilateral meeting with the president in Incheon.
On May 2, Nitmala Sitharaman, the Indian finance minister, met with Masatsugu Asakawa, the president of the Asian Development Bank, and encouraged him to provide India with more concessional climate finance because India's economic growth may have a significant positive influence both locally and internationally.
Sitharaman stated that India continues to be the most significant nation for ADB's sovereign and non-sovereign activities during the bilateral meeting with the president in Incheon. She also offered the Asian Development Bank (ADB) her assistance for creative financing strategies that would increase the bank's capacity for lending.
She urged ADB to reflect and consider how the bank might best assist its developing member nations. "FM Smt. @nsitharaman urged @ADB_HQ to support India with more concessional ClimateFinance, as India's economic and developmental progress can have huge positive impacts regionally and globally." a tweet from the finance ministry read. During the meeting, ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa reaffirmed ADB's commitment to providing its member nations with USD 100 billion in climate finance. He also thanked India for supporting ADB's cutting-edge finance facility for climate in Asia and the Pacific.
The Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) was introduced earlier in the day by ADB President, who also introduced the bank's other new climate finance initiative.
"Climate events like those we've seen over the past 12 months will only get more intense and frequent, so we need to act decisively now. The unique and intriguing IF-CAP programme will make a significant difference. And that is again another illustration of how ADB performs its role as the region's climate bank, the official added.
Denmark, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States are the founding members of IF-CAP.
Those partners and ADB are in talks about offering a variety of grants for project planning and guaranteeing a portion of ADB's sovereign loan portfolios.
As a result of the guarantees' lower risk exposure, ADB will have more money available to speed up the approval of new loans for climate projects.The initial goal of USD 3 billion in guarantees may generate up to USD 15 billion in additional financing for urgently needed climate projects throughout Asia and the Pacific using a formula of "USD 1 in, USD 5 out," he said.
FM Sitharaman to attend ADB's annual meeting in South Korea today