Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged the World Bank’s private sector investment arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), to increase lending to India to more than $2 billion in the next two years and to $3-3.5 billion over the next three-four years.
- Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of IFC, who met Ms. Sitharaman on September 18, said the IFC would adopt ‘a proactive approach’ to scale up its India investments and would extend financing to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in order to bolster the country’s ‘effort to become a manufacturing hub’.
What is International Finance Corporation (IFC)?
- IFC is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries.
- IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, advances economic development and improves the lives of people by encouraging the growth of the private sector in developing countries.
- IFC was founded in 1956 on a bold idea: that the private sector has the potential to transform developing countries.
- The IFC help countries develop their private sectors in a variety of ways: Investing in companies through loans, equity investments, debt securities and guarantees, Mobilizing capital from other lenders and investors through loan participations, parallel loans and other means and Advising businesses and governments to encourage private investment and improve the investment climate.
- Although part of the World Bank Group, IFC is a separate legal entity with separate Articles of Agreement, share capital, financial structure, management, and staff. Membership in IFC is open only to member countries of the World Bank.
- The President of the World Bank Group is also President of IFC.
- IFC raises capital through bond issuances in international capital markets to fund loans to clients and maintain its financial strength.
