ADB chief Masatsugu Asakawa expresses intention to give $20-25Bn resources over 5 yrs to India

Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa on 21 February met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and conveyed ADB’s intention to provide $20 billion–$25 billion resources over 5 years to advance the country’s aspirations for fast, inclusive, and green growth. 

Asakawa also met with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and outlined ADB efforts to achieve annual regular lending of $4 billion from its sovereign operations in the next few years.  

Apart from discussing on issued related to ADB support to India’s infrastructure and social development and climate actions, both the global leaders talked on scaling up ADB assistance to meet the country’s priority development needs, and ADB’s country partnership strategy (CPS) for India, 2023–2027.

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Currently, ADB is inalizing the new 5-year CPS following a comprehensive stakeholder consultation process.    

“India and ADB have had a long and valuable partnership, and we look forward to enhancing this to tackle the region’s complex development challenges,” Asakawa said.

“ADB will provide multifaceted support for India’s key priorities, including the important infrastructure push under the PM’s Gati Shakti (National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity) initiative, building future cities, mobilizing domestic resources, and strengthening basic services in disadvantaged districts,” he added.

According to Asakawa, the green growth agenda will drive ADB’s India program to help the country fulfill its global climate action commitments.

Under this, ADB will focus on supporting the decarbonization of transport and the clean energy transition, including carbon market development and circular economy transition, it said in a statement.

Among others, Asakawa congratulated PM Modi on India’s assumption of the Group of 20 (G20) presidency and reaffirmed ADB’s support to the G20 agenda.

With ADB being a guest international organization at the G20 meetings and Leaders’ Summit, it is supporting the priorities of India’s presidency across the finance and sherpa tracks.

On 24–25 February, Asakawa will visit the ADB-funded Delhi–Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System Investment Project and travel to Bengaluru to participate in the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting.