Odile Renaud-Basso is the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a London-headquartered multilateral development bank (MDB) that invests in emerging economies across continents.
India is one of EBRD’s 71 national shareholders and Renaud-Basso is on a maiden visit to the country this week for the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, where topics such as MDB reform, climate action and sustainable investments will be on the agenda. She is also keen to strengthen ties with the country's business community in order to step up joint investments with Indian firms and will participate in a high-level roundtable with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi to explore these co-investments in EBRD countries of operations in Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Turkey and Eastern Europe.
“India has a very important role to play as the president of the G20 at a time of a number of global challenges because of the geopolitical context. So, the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting has an important role to play in a number of areas, from discussing the macroeconomic situation, policy coordination, financial sector development in this new environment with high inflation,” she said, ahead of her India visit.
“We have been working with Indian private companies and we are looking to develop co-investment or co-finance projects. We have a sort of sectoral approach globally speaking on areas where we believe that cooperation would be the most relevant, and the first one is green sector and climate change, but also pharmaceutical, IT, agribusiness and services sector, so it's quite large,” she added.
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As of June 2023, the value of joint India-EBRD investment stood at €981.1 million. These joint investments have been strong in Turkey at €75.0 million, Romania at €66.4 million, Ukraine at €65.8 million and Georgia at €26.4 million.
The EBRD said with India’s G20 presidency it believes there are more opportunities to engage with Indian companies striving to grow their business outside of India. The development bank is committed to increase green financing to at least 50 per cent of its annual business volume by 2025, which gives significant opportunities to Indian firms to be a part of our climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience efforts. The EBRD places great emphasis on renewable energy and has signed a joint declaration with the India-led International Solar Alliance (ISA).
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“There is a strong concern that we are not doing enough [on climate action] and hence the focus on how MDBs can contribute to this agenda,” added the EBRD President.
*Info: EBRD
