Recently, the Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman had a bilateral meeting with President Masatsugu Asakawa of the Asian Development Bank in Incheon, South Korea. The finance minister showed her support to ADB for its various mechanisms that revolve around finance resulting in the enhancement of lending capacities.
In the meeting, Nirmala Sitharaman urged the Asian Development Bank to lend its support to India by making climate finance more concessional. She impressed upon the ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa regarding how the progress and development of India on the economic fronts can create a global effect.
According to the tweets by the finance ministry, Nirmala Sitharaman had talks with the ADB President regarding the suggestion of supporting the developing member countries. She said that the bank should introspect and make its assessment as to how can it develop the financial mechanisms that would majorly support the developing member countries.
Finance Minister Sitharaman exerted the importance of India in most of the sovereign and non-sovereign operations that are run by the ADB. Sitharaman further added that India is not the attention of the world and the major leading economies because it continues to be the fastest-growing major economy in the world, but because of the way, India as a whole has fought the Covid-19 pandemic and successfully won the battle against it. The economic recovery of India was much ahead of any other country.
Sitharaman further stated that developing and emerging economies should participate in global affairs and also put forward their contribution to resolving the various global conflicts. She expressed her point of the need for emerging economies to become growth engines. She also stated about the forecast done by the International Monetary Fund for India’s growth rate in the Financial Year 2023-24 and financial year 2024-25 stands at 5.9% and 6.3% respectively.
She also said how India is concerned about climate change and has been taking action toward the betterment of the climate through both efforts and money. While praising India for its steps towards the recovery of climate, Sitharaman also recounted the failure of developed economies in keeping up with the promise to raise 100 billion US dollars in aid for the cause of climate change.
Asian Development Bank President Masatsugu Asakawa also claimed the ADB’s commitment to lending to its member countries an amount of 100 billion dollars as climate finance. He also appreciated and acknowledged how India is making efforts towards the betterment of the climate and the multiple ways in which it continues doing so.
The agenda for the meeting was duly met as both the leaders spoke about the climate finance and the role of developing economies in keeping forward the climatic needs.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also addressed the Indians living in South Korea in Seoul. There she praised the strategies and measures that the government had taken extensively to fight the then-ongoing Covid 19 Pandemic. She stated how India is making the Western and developed nations around the globe feel and acknowledge its presence as an emerging leader.
