Asia and the Pacific

The Asia and Pacific region remains one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic regions in the world. Over the past two decades, most countries in the region have achieved strong and stable growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and transformed economies across the region. Many East Asia and Pacific countries have risen to upper-middle income status and have set the goal of reaching high-income status in the near to medium term.

For South Asia, growth is expected to increase to 6.4 percent this year, exceeding earlier projections and keeping the region on track to be the fastest growing in the world. Unlocking untapped potential by increasing women’s participation in the labor force and opening further to global trade and investment could help the region grow even faster and achieve its development goals.

In FY24, MIGA issued a guarantee of up to $132 million to MUFG Bank of Japan to support financing for the construction of an 1,840-kilometer-long electric high-speed freight-only railway system in India. In the same year, MIGA issued a second guarantee of $317.5 million to Citi, Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank for their loan to the State Bank of India, supporting innovative solar rooftop systems in India.

Recently, MIGA supported a hydropower plant project in the Solomon Islands and an electric transmission line project in Cambodia, issuing $88.1 million in total in the EAP region. Additionally, both these projects represented the first guarantees issued by the Agency in the two countries. For South Asia, MIGA issued guarantees for $444.2 million to support two projects. The first project was a Political Risk Insurance (PRI) guarantee for $87.4 million in relation to a hydropower project in Nepal; the second project was a Non-Honoring of Financial Obligations (NHFO) guarantee for $356.8 million in relation to a fertilizer production facility in Bangladesh.