Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has pitched for deeper engagement of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in development of smart cities, industrial corridors and railways for the government’s various ambitious plans like ‘Make In India’ and ‘Skill India’. The Finance Minister, observing that India is ADB's largest client, said that the partnership should now move to the next level. He further said that “In addition to supporting conventional infrastructure projects, we would like a deeper engagement on development of Smart Cities, Industrial Corridors, Rail transport and manufacturing and job creation through flagship initiatives of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’.”
Jaitley also said that ADB should aim for annual business of at least $ 20 billion by 2020. He added that ‘Twenty by Twenty’ should be our corporate goal, the Mantra. “ADB not only needs to become bigger, it also needs to become better, as a model among the MDBs (multilateral development banks).” In 2014, ADB’s total loans and grants operations were USD 13.5 billion, slightly less than the previous year.
The Finance Minister also appreciated the plan of merger of ADF (Asian Development Fund) resources with OCR (ordinary capital resources) and reforming ADB, saying it would help in promoting growth in Asian region. He said that this was critical to securing the unanimous consent of all ADF donors. To use the enhanced lending capacity, thus available, ADB has to build a strong project pipeline for implementation from 2017,
Talking about India and the present government, FM said that the country is expected to grow at 7.5-8 per cent in both 2015 and 2016. This only reaffirms India's fascinating growth prospects. The government’s goal is to place the Indian economy on a high and sustained growth trajectory through focus on infrastructure development, skills development, improving ease of doing business and economic reforms including comprehensive social safety net and fiscal discipline.
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