Speech for the Signing Ceremony of Shanghai Lingang Distributed Solar Power Project

Your Excellency – Mr. Shi Yaobin – Vice Minister of Finance of China

Mr. Cheng Zhijun, Deputy Director General

Mr. Ying Yong, Executive Vice Mayor of Shanghai

Mr. Yu Beihua, Deputy Secretary General of SMG

Madam Song Yijia, Director General of SMFB

Madam Wang Lan, Deputy Director General of SMFB

Mr. Zhu Min, Deputy Director General of Shanghai Development and Reform Commission

Mr. Liu Jiaping – Chairman, Lingang Group

Senior Government officials,

Distinguished members of the Press,

Distinguished Guest, Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of New Development Bank, it is a privilege to welcome you to the signing ceremony of our first loan agreement – Shanghai Lingang Distributed Solar Power Project.

I would first like to extend my sincere appreciation to all those who have put in tremendous effort in preparing this project especially our colleagues from the Lingang group. Having just started operations last year, we were able to appraise this project in a record time and have set a new benchmark for NDB to follow.

All of this would not have been possible without the support and guidance, we received from the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Today, China is charting a new path in providing green solutions and is a world leader in adopting green energy. In 2015, China invested more in renewables than Europe and US combined. And the Shanghai Lingang project is a strong testament of China’s green commitment.

This commitment is visible in my city- Shanghai. I came to Shanghai in July last year and am proud to call it home. And so has every colleague from around the world. We have been received with great warmth and received enormous support from the Shanghai Government at each step, who in a way have made the NDB one of their own. Shanghai with high rises, elevated roads, a river front of tens of kilometers, bridges, tunnels, world class mass transit, the maglev train, open garden spaces, with several gardens such as Century Park, has set the standard for a 21st century modern smart city. All of this has been done under the ambit of China’s firm resolve of going green. We would like to showcase Shanghai city as a development model in our next Annual meeting.

As many of you know, NDB was established by our founding fathers to finance infrastructure and sustainable development activities in its member countries. We were also established to pursue the green commitment of our founders. Since inception, our activities are aligned towards this commitment. The Board of Directors of NDB has approved 7 projects with loans aggregating over USD1.5 billion, majority of which are in the area of renewable energy space during the year. These projects are spread across the spectrum of the renewable energy sector such as solar, wind (both onshore and offshore), small hydro and green energy transmission. The Shanghai Lingang roof top solar project will be funded by our Green Bond, which we issued recently in the Chinese interbank bond market.

This project, with 1,155 effective generation hours per year, would, on average, generate ~ 100 million kWh of electricity every year which would be sold to the state grid as well as to the industrial users in the Shanghai Lingang Industrial Area. By generating electricity using renewable energy source, the project would avoid 73,000 tons of carbon dioxide emission annually. The project would benefit end users in the Industrial area, people of Shanghai in particular and people of China in general due to production of electricity in a environmentally sustainable manner leading to reduction in emissions.

Once again, I thank all of you and welcome you to our signing ceremony.