Hong Kong can unlock capital to fill Asia’s US$800 billion climate-finance gap, AIIB says
City’s ‘leadership and convening power as a global financial centre’ has a ‘clear’ role to play, bank’s chief investment officer says
Hong Kong can help Asia fill a staggering climate-financing gap by helping to tap a global pool of more than US$200 trillion to fund sustainable-infrastructure projects, according to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
There was a glaring disconnect between the vast amount of available capital and the low deployment of funds for climate action in the Asia-Pacific region, said Lim Kim-see, the bank’s chief investment officer for public sector and funds clients, in an interview.
“We really need the private sector to come into financing, because governments around the world lack fiscal capacity to meet the vast amount of investment needed to achieve the nationally determined contributions,” she said.
Global assets under management with institutional investors such as pension funds, sovereign funds, private-equity funds and financial institutions exceeded US$200 trillion, Lim added.
The region needs investment of at least US$1.1 trillion a year to meet mitigation and adaptation needs, but actual investment is falling short by about US$800 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund.
That said, global investors are beginning to increase their allocations to the region.