AIIB in talks with India to scale up project financing

Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which India is the second largest shareholder after China, is holding discussions with the central and state governments as well as industry to finance a robust pipeline of sovereign and private sector projects, its vice president Ajay Bhushan Pandey said on Tuesday.

- Gireesh Chandra Prasad

The development bank is working to step up annual project financing from about $10 billion last fiscal to $17 billion over the next few years.

Pandey, who is on a visit to India, said AIIB finances projects not only in traditional infrastructure, but also in digital public infrastructure, data centres, digital communication, affordable housing, health and education.

AIIB already has deployed $12 billion in India, of which $1.8 billion is in the private sector. It has a loan book of about $60 billion and is aiming to step this up.