FM Nirmala Sitharaman to attend Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in South Korea today
1 min read 02 May 2023, 10:55 AM ISTFM Nirmala Sitharaman reached Incheon Airport, South Korea. She was received by the Ambassador of India to the Republic of Korea, Amit Kumar.
PremiumFinance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be attending Asian Development Bank's (ADB) 56th annual meeting this week from May 2-5. The finance minister will be on a four-day visit to South Korea starting Tuesday.
On Tuesday FM Sitharaman reached Incheon Airport, South Korea. She was received by the Ambassador of India to the Republic of Korea, Amit Kumar.
"Union Finance Minister Smt. @nsitharaman reached the Republic of Korea for her 4-day official visit. She was received by Shri @KumarAmitMEA, Ambassador of India to the Republic of Korea, upon her arrival at the Incheon Airport today early morning (KST)," the Finance Ministry tweeted.
Apart from attending the Annual General Meeting of the Board of Governors of the ADB, Sitharaman will address investors and hold bilateral meetings.
The Union Finance Minister will also have interactions with global business leaders and investors in roundtables, as well as an engagement with the community diaspora.
FM Sitharaman will participate in the annual meeting focal events like the Governors' Business. She will also be on the panel during the ADB Governors' Seminar on 'Policies to Support Asia's Rebound'.
Meanwhile, the ADB on Tuesday announced a funding guarantee facility to help the region reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build infrastructure resilient to the impact of climate change.
The new funding plan is the first mechanism of its kind to be developed by a development bank and reflects the pressure such lenders face from shareholders to innovate to tackle a climate crisis that has hit Asia hard.
Named the Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP), the plan is the first leveraged guarantee mechanism for climate finance adopted by a multilateral development bank, the ADB said.
IF-CAP will contribute to meeting the ADB's goal to use $100 billion from its resources to combat climate change for 2019-2030, the lender said.
Under the programme, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States will guarantee some of the lender's loans and shoulder losses in case its borrowers default on their debt.
It will free up capital the ADB needs to hold for credit risk, and allow it to increase lending to climate-related projects in Asia.
Asia is among the regions most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. More than 40% of climate-related disasters occurred in Asia and the Pacific since the start of the century, the ADB said.
