At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, announced that the Singapore Government has committed up to US$500 million in concessional funding to support the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P) launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) last year.
FAST-P is a blended finance initiative which brings together international public, private and philanthropic partners to support Asia’s decarbonisation and climate resilience. The Singapore Government will pledge up to US$500 million as concessional capital, to match dollar-for-dollar, concessional capital from other partners, including other governments, multilateral development finance institutions and philanthropies. This combined pool of concessional capital will be used to crowd in commercial capital and other sources of finance to support Asia’s green transition, and raise up to US$5 billion to support Asia’s green and transition financing needs.
Since its launch, FAST-P has also established a new Industrial Transformation infrastructure debt programme, in addition to the Energy Transition Acceleration Finance partnership and Green Investments partnership that were announced at COP28, and engaged managers to implement these three pillars.
AIA, BlackRock, IFC, MAS, MUFG and NEXI have signed a Statement of Intent to collaborate on the newly identified Industrial Transformation infrastructure debt programme, which will explore opportunities to provide debt financing to private-sector borrowers seeking to decarbonise their businesses, including projects in hard-to-abate sectors, technology solutions for the low-carbon transformation, and industrial opportunities.
At COP29, the governments of Germany, Japan, and New Zealand welcomed the progress so far, including the establishment of the Energy Transition Acceleration Finance (ETAF) partnership with Singapore and GEAPP. This partnership will invest in energy transition projects, including early retirement of coal assets, renewable energy, and grid modernisation and development. MAS is in discussion with Clifford Capital, which has extensive experience with infrastructure financing in Asia, to manage ETAF.
