By IANS
Brussels : The European Investment Bank (EIB) – the financing arm of the European Union (EU) – hopes to start financing projects in India this year.
“We hope very much that this year we will have a great deal of operations in India,” Director General Jean-Louis Biancarelli said here.
Biancarelli, who looks after lending operations outside the EU, visited India last week to tell the Indian authorities that EIB was ready to cooperate in the fields of climate change mitigation and energy.
The EIB official held talks with the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA) and the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) and also met the governor of the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai.
“The idea is to design a package of line of credit to mobilize promoters in India in order to develop projects in the two sectors,” EuAsiaNews quoted Biancarelli as saying.
The EIB wants to finalise the projects before the next EU-India summit to be held in Paris later this year.
France will take over the rotating EU Presidency from Slovenia July 1.
The EIB and India signed a framework agreement in 2003 but it has not led to financial cooperation between the two sides due to administrative reasons.
The EIB, based in Luxembourg, was established in 1958 to provide financing for capital investment promoting EU policy objectives, in particular regional development, transport and telecommunications and energy operations.