India to Receive Billions For Clean Technology Innovation

New Delhi: Addressing the 2nd India Cleantech Forum, in New Delhi, on July 10, 2008, John McCarthy, the Australian High Commissioner to India said that Australia and India were on the verge of a great economic partnership. At the same forum, Chris Greenwood, Director of New Energy Finance, UK, revealed that investments in the clean technology sector would reach a rate of US$ 10 billion per week by 2030. He was presenting the enormous growth opportunities in new investment areas of clean technologies and renewable energy like solar and wind technology, and bio-fuels amongst others. He further added that several clean technologies needed heavy engineering and there was a demand supply gap which hiked the cost of these technologies. He reiterated that energy infrastructure in developing countries should be developed with low cost, decentralised solutions.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, CII-Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development and Clean Technology AustralAsia are together organising this forum with the aim to recognise the challenges and opportunities for stepping up investment, dissemination and deployment of clean-tech in the swelling Indian market, which is widely held as the biggest clean-tech market in the world.

More than 30 global experts and leaders in clean-tech would be sharing vital market knowledge and opportunities for clean-tech in India in this forum scheduled for two days.

McCarthy said the success of the partnership would depend on how "we promote growth today to tackle the central issues of climate change, sustainability and clean technologies which will be discussed in the forum today." He said that climate change and sustainable development were the core policy issues for both India and Australia and the two countries have jointly worked in partnerships like the Asia Pacific Partnership for clean development and climate change. Together, they had built a fund for strategic research, and had also worked together to build markets for renewable energy and clean technologies. He underscored that the private sector was an important source of ideas, and emphasised that visionaries of clean- tech, should ensure the right policy scenarios along with repositioning of regulations supported with the right political will.

Fred R Buenrostro, former Chief Executive Officer of CalPERS; America's largest pension fund, stressed that asset allocations to clean technologies in developing markets is on the rise and upcoming economies like India, drawing institutional investors from developed countries like the US, can become the benchmark economy with its reliance on renewable energy and promotion of clean-tech. He emphasised that the time was ripe for transformational investments to come up with solutions to some of world's most critical environmental challenges.

Source: www.ibef.org
Date: July 11, 2008