The Asian Development Bank may raise at least $100 million more in venture capital to invest in developers of advanced clean-energy technologies in the region.
The lender has formed a taskforce to design the fund before seeking management approval, Jun Tian, an adviser at the Manila- based bank’s regional and sustainable development department, said in an interview in Tokyo today.
The lender had already raised $363 million for four funds focusing on renewable energy including wind and hydropower plants in order to thwart climate change, Tian said. Clean energy investment fell 6.5 percent to $145 billion worldwide last year from 2008, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, as the global recession sapped funding for the sector.
“ADB’s strategy is to encourage the use of renewable energy and to focus on smaller and poorer countries for using the funds,” said Tian, who worked for China’s National Development and Reform Commission for more than two decades before joining the ADB in 2006. “China already has very strong manufacturing infrastructure and domestic financial resources, but India still is weak at manufacturing, and the country has to heavily rely on imports of equipment for almost everything, such as advanced coal-fired power plants.”
Source: Business Week