Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived in South Korea’s Incheon airport on Tuesday to participate in the 56th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) during May2-5, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman arrived in South Korea’s Incheon airport on Tuesday to participate in the 56th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) during May2-5, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
She was received by Indian Ambassador Amit Kumar in the Republic of Korea.
“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 posted on Twitter.
During her visit, Sitharaman will interact with investors and conduct private meetings on the sidelines of the ADB Board of Governors’ Annual General Meeting.
The Finance Minister is scheduled to interact with the Indian diaspora and take part in roundtable discussions with top business executives and global investors during her visit to South Korea.
She will also take part in key activities during the annual conference, including the Governors’ Business and as a panel participant during the ADB Governors’ Seminar on Policies to Support Asia’s Rebound.
The ADB launched the Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP), a funding guarantee facility to assist the region in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The facility also expected to fund the creation of climate change-resilient infrastructure.
IF-CAP will help realise the goal of $100 billion expenditure towards tackling climate change between 2019 and 2030, according to the multilateral lender.
This is the first leveraged guarantee mechanism for climate funding developed by a multilateral development bank, according to the ADB.
The new scheme, the first tool of its kind, underscores the pressure that lenders like these face from their shareholders to come up with innovative solutions to the climate crisis, which is particularly affecting Asia.
Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, and the US will back some of the loans under the plan and take the losses if the borrowers fail to repay them.
The funding scheme is expected to increase climate-related lending and release funds required to hedge against credit risk.
Asia highly susceptible to the effects of climate change. Since the start of the century, more than 40 per cent of climate-related disasters have struck Asia and the Pacific, according to the ADB.