Republic Secures $655m to Fund Green, Sustainable Projects in Asia

Singapore's national climate finance initiative has secured US$510 million (S$655.7 million) as of Sept 8 to fund green and sustainable infrastructure in South-east and South Asia.

- Shabana Begum

Such infrastructure projects could include renewable energy plants and storage, electric vehicles, sustainable transport, and water and waste management projects, among sectors critical to the regions' energy transition, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said.

Many of these projects are not readily supported by commercial lenders because of investors' lack of familiarity.

To address this, MAS launched the national initiative, Financing Asia's Transition Partnership (Fast-P), in 2023.

The aim of Fast-P, a blended finance initiative, is to bring together public, private and philanthropic capital to help finance Asia's green transition, with the aim of eventually raising up to US$5 billion from these sources.

Fast-P comprises three funding pillars: green investments, accelerating energy transition and industrial transformation, which will focus on emissions-intensive sectors such as cement and steel and on carbon removal technologies.

The Green Investments Partnership is the first fund under the Fast-P initiative to achieve first close on Sept 8, with US$510 million coming from global and regional private, public and philanthropic institutions such as Temasek and HSBC, and the Australian and European governments.

Blended finance usually starts with capital from public or philanthropic sources as a catalyst to spur the private sector—which holds most of the world's wealth—to invest in sustainable development.