A senior government official representing Cambodia in the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Governors’ Business Session of the bank’s 56th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors in Incheon, South Korea early this month lauded ADB for its commitments and co-financing results in 2022.

Delivering a statement on behalf of the Cambodian governor of ADB, Pen Thirong, Undersecretary of State of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), said ADB had a total commitment to loans, grants, equity investments, guarantees and technical assistance reaching the amount of $20.5 billion, and an additional amount of $11.4 billion mobilised in co-financing.

Thirong, who is also Cambodia’s temporary alternate governor in ADB, also commended the provision of $6.7 billion in financing towards the climate actions, making headway towards the multilateral development bank’s enhanced ambition of achieving the amount of $100 billion in cumulative climate financing between 2019 and 2030.

Thirong pointed out that ADB provided Cambodia with funding in a total amount of $620 million for nine projects of which the amount of $387 million was on concessional terms and about $40 million were made available in the Asian Development Fund (ADF) Grants in 2022, while the amount of about $169 million was mobilised on concessional terms and in grants, in co-financing for these projects.

“I congratulate the bank for the strong operational performance [last year] with [the] total commitments in loans, grants, equity investments, guarantees and technical assistance… Moving forward, Cambodia would appreciate the bank’s continuous efforts in providing our country with highly concessional loans and grants,” said Thirong.

“With the endorsement of the bank’s new operating model, Cambodia also hopes to witness a more responsive and agile operation from the bank by shifting the responsibility, as well as the professional and technical expertise to the country office,” said Thirong, adding that Cambodia has still allocated $250 million supported by ADB in fighting against Covid-19.

He further said that the support from the program loan together with other sources of financing has made a significant contribution towards Cambodia achieving the recovery pace in 2021 and 2022. “Advancing further, Cambodia will continue to need similar support which will contribute to the full recovery of the economy from the downturn caused by the pandemic and other shocks,” Thirong said.

On the sidelines of the ADB Governors’ Business Session on the third day of ADB’s 56th General Meeting, Thirong told Khmer Times that Cambodia is not against the journey of the bank’s transformation to be a climate bank, but it would request grant financing for projects.

“We would request grant financing for any projects that are related to climate change, not loans because industrialised countries have commercialised on natural resources for a long time already as they have large factories and others that release polluting things like smokes into the environment, while we are still small and developing countries,” said Thirong.

Warren Evans, ADB’s Climate Envoy, told Khmer Times that the biggest challenge is increasing access to concessional resources and grants for most vulnerable countries particularly those that do not cause problems but suffer the most from them even though ADB’s Asian Development Fund (ADF) has a strong replenishment of these resources.

However, Evans said further that ADB would launch its Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) program today—Friday which is the last day of the 56th Annual Meeting of ADB’s Board of Governors—mainly aims to address this challenge by attracting additional donors to release more funds for projects against climate change.

“So, in countries like Cambodia, it would depend on what investment is. If it is a renewable energy, it would be closer to commercial terms as this country has done a very good job in coming up with new approaches to renewable. If it deals with the risks of climate impacts, then we need to find concessional resources to support those investments,” said Evans.

ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa told Khmer Times that the multilateral development bank has set rules for financing to regional and non-regional member countries. “We have rules set that some countries are eligible to get loans, while some are eligible to get grants even under the climate change,” Asakawa said.

“We hope that the two largest economies in the world will find the right way to stabilise the relationship that will have good impacts on their own economies as well as the Asia Pacific,” Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told Khmer Times, referring to the two largest countries to the US and China whose representatives were also present in the session.

• Tags: ADB, Economy recovery