Source: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri Workers carry a packed basket of vegetables at a wholesale vegetable market in Kolkata. The Asian Development Bank’s return to India brings with it a marked contrast from last year’s annual meeting in Manila. While the Philippines, under a new president with big plans for economic reforms and infrastructure investment, was – and still is – drawing praise from analysts and attracting crowds of enthusiastic investors, the mood in New Delhi is far more circumspect. India has announced a series of welcome measures...Read more
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The latest uncontested nomination for the presidency of the Asian Development Bank suggests that little is changing at the bank’s Manila headquarters. Behind the scenes, however, the institution is transforming in response to Asia’s development.
Takehiko Nakao, Japan’s nominee for the ADB presidency, highlights private-sector initiatives as an area where the bank needs to enhance its operations. Rolling out public-private partnerships across the region, however, remains a daunting undertaking.
An ADB-led initiative to deepen Asia’s local bond markets looked to be back on track in April after Thai investors expressed early interest in a baht deal from commodity trader Noble Group. Singapore-listed Noble, which has raised funding in US dollars, Singapore dollars and ringgit, is planning a debut in the baht market with a guarantee from the ADB-backed Credit Guarantee and Investment Facility. The credit enhancement fund had pledged support for a Singapore dollar bond from Thai Union Frozen last June via HSBC. However, the deal never took...
India has unveiled a range of policy measures in a bid to restore confidence in its economy and close its infrastructure deficit. Investors, however, are waiting to see whether or not the country’s bureaucracy can follow through on its promises.
The Asian Development Bank last September pledged to guarantee a portion of up to five Indian project financings in a US$128m bid to kick-start the country’s infrastructure bond market. Alongside state-run India Infrastructure Finance (IIFCL), it will guarantee repayment of 24% of a 12.5-year bond of up to Rs3.2bn (US$59m) from a toll-road project in Andhra Pradesh. The move is the first of its kind in the rupee-bond market and comes as India steps up efforts to spread its infrastructure funding requirement beyond the banking sector. “The...
Usually the preserve of multilateral development banks, climate-sensitive financings are growing in popularity. A recent issue of so-called ‘green bonds’ from the Export-Import Bank of Korea hints at the potential for social investing to spread across Asia.
Growing global enthusiasm for emerging-market risk is good news for Asia and especially for the frontier markets that have yet to make their mark on the international capital markets. From Myanmar to Papua New Guinea, countries are attracting crowds of potential dealmakers.
Japanese firms are set to ramp up investments in emerging Asia in response to monetary easing at home. While increased foreign investment is good news for the region, economists are already drawing parallels with the bubble that Japan helped inflate in the run-up to the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
Japan’s massive money injection has raised fears of a global currency war that could threaten Asia’s economic stability, but there are signs that the market may be overestimating the spill-over effect.
The global financial crisis laid bare the link between the world’s financial markets and global trade volumes. For Asian companies, tougher banking regulations and European deleveraging are only adding to the challenge.
