Kathmandu, June 22:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Economic Forum (WEF) brought together leading private sector and development partners for a roundtable discussion to explore ways

to catalyze private sector investment in developing Asia.

The Financing for Development Roundtable, held at ADB Headquarters in Manila offered senior executives of private sector financial institutions the chance to interact with WEF and ADB’s management on WEF’s Financing for Development Initiative.

The primary focus of the Roundtable was how ADB could expand partnerships with the private sector to leverage development capital and catalyze greater private sector investment in the Asia Pacific region. Participants also discussed ways to expand risk mitigation activities and enhance local currency finance, states a press release.

“This roundtable is an important opportunity for ADB to hear directly from the private sector on how we can work more closely together to close the widening development financing gap in Asia,” said Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, ADB vice-president for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development. “ADB has set a goal of about 50 per cent of operations to be

in private sector development and private sector operations by 2020 and we need to cultivate greater public-private partnerships to achieve that goal.”

The Financing for Development Initiative is a two-year long initiative aimed at evolving a public-private financing partnership between multilateral development banks (MDB), bilateral development finance institutions and global investment and commercial financial institutions. Several joint roundtables with MDBs have taken place this year including a WEF-sponsored seminar at ADB’s annual meeting in Madrid in May.

Key topics of discussion at the Manila roundtable included how public-private partnerships are evolving in Asia, ways to enhance the overall investment climate in the region, the development of new financial products and modalities for public-private partnerships, scaling up of guarantees and other risk mitigation products and the development of local capital markets.

WEF is an independent international organisation committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.