Mumbai:
Asian countries need to come together to improve their infrastructure connectivity to increase their GDP share in the global economy.
At a panel discussion held as part of the third Annual Meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Monday, D.J. Pandian, Vice President and Chief Investment Officer,AIIB pointed out that Asia accounts for 50 per cent of the global populace but only constitutes 30% of the world GDP.
Making countries, many of which are land-locked, more connected through rail and road network using the resources of AIIB, to boost trade and economic growth, can reduce the disparity.
The Bank has so far in its short span of just over two years offered infrastructure funding of around US$4.4 billion.
Union Minister for Finance, Piyush Goyal said, India is looking forward to investments in 9 more projects from the AIIB after having picked up almost 28 per centof the bank’s total lending so far, amounting to US$1.4 billion for 7 projects.
Danny Alexander, vice president, AIIB, said that it is imperative to create and leverage collaborations in order to support cross country projects, which can be through partnerships with various governments, corporates, institutions as well as public and private sectors.
In the session on “Sustainable Infrastructure”, the panel members emphasized the function,importance and urgency of sustainable infrastructure. The esteemed speakers of the session were Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Nicolas Stern, Former Chief Economist, World Bank and IAP, and Paul Speltz, former US Executive Director to ADB and IAP moderated the session.
Elaborating on the theme of Sustainable Infrastructure, Nicolas explained that, sustainable infrastructure is crucial and lies at the core of inclusive growth, the sustainable development goals and climate change
“Moreover, it is vital that we consciously make an effort to seize this narrow window of opportunity in the next two decades to ensure that we meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Stating that we need to overcome the obstacles we are currently facing in infrastructure development, he was hopeful of translating potential projects into new investment opportunities,'' Stern,
The day also saw a panel discussion on ‘Gender and Infrastructure’ focused on policy and process put in place for providing better infrastructure both for men and women. The presentation shared by the panelist emphasized on basic needs of women in terms of infrastructure and how it can be modified.
At the panel siscussion of chief ministers on ‘Vision of Infrastructure Development in India’, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis said, “Our mission is to become US$1 trillion sub-national economy by 2025 and to align it with the country’s plan to be US$5 trillion economy.’’
“We have pitched Mumbai Metro Line 4 to AIIB and we are negotiating details with them,” he said at the sidelines of the discussion. He also added that 35 per cent of the vehicular traffic could be reduced with the network of metro planned in Mumbai and Pune.”
Enumerating the road map of infrastructure development, Fadnavis said that Maharashtra accounts for 15% of national GDP, more than 22 per cent of India’s industrial output and 30 per cent of India’s exports.