India for deeper engagement of Asian Development Bank for smart cities, railways, says FM Arun Jaitley

BAKU/NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today sought "deeper engagement" of the ADB for development of smart cities, industrial corridors and railways as part of flagship initiatives like ' Make In India' and ' Skill India'.

"India is expected to grow at 7.5-8 per cent in both 2015 and 2016. This only reaffirms India's fascinating growth prospects. In a time span of less than a year, our government has taken a number of steps to revive the economy.

"Our goal is to place the Indian economy on a high and sustained growth trajectory through focus on infrastructure development, skills development, improving ease of doing business and economic reforms including comprehensive social safety net and fiscal discipline," he said.

Jaitley was speaking at the First Business Session of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at Baku in Azerbaijan.

The ADB should aim at an annual business of USD 20 billion by 2020, he said, adding, "Twenty by Twenty should be (ADB's) corporate goal, the Mantra ... ADB not only needs to become bigger, it also needs to become better, as a model among the MDBs (multilateral development banks)".

Observing that India is ADB's largest client, Jaitley said the partnership should now move to the next level.

"In addition to supporting conventional infrastructure projects, we would like a deeper engagement on development of Smart Cities, Industrial Corridors, Rail transport and manufacturing and job creation through flagship initiatives of 'Make in India' and 'Skill India'," the Finance Minister said.