East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC) development to get US$250M in 2017-19.
The #Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to lend US$400 million to India’s #East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC) development in 2017-19.
It will lend US$250 million to Phase 1 of the ECEC which is the Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor covering 11 districts in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The second loan will be US$150 million for the Regional Urban Development Project in Nepal in 2017.
Speaking on the ECEC, Ronald Antonio Butiong, Director of ADB South Asia Department’s Regional Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division highlighted India-ADB partnership which has yielded useful lessons on Economic Corridor Development (ECD), through their joint work ECEC, India’s first coastal corridor.
“The ECEC, which runs along the entire east coast from Kolkata to Kanyakumari, is a multimodal, regional maritime corridor that can play a vital role in unifying the large domestic market, as well as integrating the Indian economy with the dynamic global value chains of Southeast and East Asia,” he said in a note released by India’s Public Information Bureau on 25 March 2017.
Aside from an ambitious infrastructure program, the ECEC involves developing skills, and creating an attractive regulatory environment, bringing in new investments, and nurturing existing businesses to grow and innovate, and create much needed jobs.
ADB has helped prepare the Conceptual Development Plan (CDP) and Regional Perspective Plan (RPP) for VCIC, which served as the bases for the Visakhapatnam–Chennai Industrial Corridor Development Program. It was approved by the ADB Board in September 2016.
The Program comprises a multi-tranche financing facility (MFF), a grant, and a policy-based loan (PBL) for a total investment amount of US$631 million.
The MFF and grant will support priority infrastructure investments in the VCIC region and the PBL will support policy reforms and institutional development in the state of Andhra Pradesh. fii-news.com
