Insurance giant AIA and four other investors have signed up with BlackRock signing a Statement of Intent to collaborate on a blended finance debt initiative targeted at global investors who want to finance decarbonisation projects in Asia.
The agreement, signed at the COP29 climate conference and titled the Industrial Transformation Infrastructure Debt Programme, is part of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P).
Launched by MAS in 2023, FAST-P seeks to mobilise up to US$5bn in investment from public, private, and philanthropic sources to bridge Southeast Asia’s decarbonisation financing gap.
According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and International Energy Agency, this gap is substantial, with annual clean energy investment in Southeast Asia needing to increase eightfold—from US$30 bn in 2022 to over US$200bn by the early 2030s—to meet climate and energy needs.
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Under the new agreement, BlackRock, MAS, IFC, Japanese bank holding company MUFG, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, and AIA will explore debt financing options for sectors such as technology, industrial infrastructure, and carbon-intensive industries transitioning to low-carbon alternatives.
The initiative will also seek to attract additional concessional and commercial capital to sustain these decarbonisation projects.
Leong Sing Chiong, deputy managing director, markets and development at MAS, said: “For Asia to transition to net zero, we must decarbonise sectors of the economy progressively, including carbon intensive or hard-to-abate sectors. Financing for businesses and sectors that seek to adopt cleaner technologies and processes, is an important enabler.”
