ADFIAP’s 41st Annual Meeting with the theme, “Promoting Inclusive & Sustainable Development: Role of DFIs,” was successfully held at the ITC Maurya in New Delhi, India on February 20-22, 2018. The event was hosted by ADFIAP members in the India, namely, IDBI Bank Limited, Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) , National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, National Housing Bank, and North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd. It was keynoted by Mr. Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Finance Minister, and Minister of Corporate Affairs, Government of India, and attended by more than a hundred delegates from ADFIAP members, partners, and invited guests.

An Exim Bank Study entitled “Revitalising Trade Finance: Development Banks and Export Credit Agencies at the Vanguard” was released during the Inaugural Session of the Annual Meeting. The publication is an attempt to analyse the recent trends in trade finance flows, challenges that have constrained its growth, and strategies which can be adopted to bridge the huge existing global trade finance deficit.

The conference proper covered five (5) topics of relevance to members, i.e., “Agriculture and Rural Development” (Session 1); “Affordable Housing” (Session 2); “MSME & Entrepreneurship” (Session 3); “Infrastructure Development” (Session 4); and “Trade Finance” (Session 5) with two sub-sessions on “Building Resilient Trade Finance Architecture” and on “Promoting Intra-regional Trade through ECA Financing and Risk Mitigation”.

Speakers who shared their insights were: Session 1: Mr. Roy Sobreycarey, President, New Rural Bank of Agoncillo, Philippines (moderator), Mr. R. Amalorpavanathan, Deputy Managing Director, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), India; Ms. Masaat binti Awadz, Covering President/CEO and Chief Financial Officer, Agrobank Malaysia; and Ms. Anna Mendiola, FSM Development Bank, Federated States of Micronesia.

Session 2: Mr. Sriram Kalyanaraman, Managing Director & CEO, National Housing Bank, India (moderator), Ms. Rula Levi, CEO, Samoa Housing Corporation; Ms. Anna Mendiola, FSM Development Bank and Dr. Charan Singh, Director, National Housing Bank and Fulltime Visiting Faculty, India Institute of Management, Bangalore.

Session 3: Dr. Sailendra Narain, ADFIAP Honorary Member and former Chairman and Managing Director, Centre for SME Growth and Development Finance, India (moderator); Dato’ Syed Kamarulzaman bin Dato’ SZBK Shahabudin, Managing Director, Perbadanan Nasional Berhad, Malaysia; Datuk Mohd Zamree Mohd Ishak, President & CEO, Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad; Dr. Sunil Shukla, Director, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India; and, Mr. Rajan Ashok Uttamchandani, Chairman & CEO, Esquire Financing Inc., Philippines.

Session 4: Mr. Gurudeo Madhukar Yadwadkar, Deputy Managing Director, IDBI Bank, Ltd (moderator), Mr. Sergey Vasiliev, Deputy Chairman, Vnesheconombank; Mr. B. Paul Muktieh, Chairman & Managing Director, North Eastern Development Finance Corporation, Ltd., India; Mr. Edwin Syahruzad, Director of Financing & Investment, PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (Persero), Indonesia; and Mr. Batbayar Balgan, CEO, Development Bank of Mongolia.

Session 5, Sub-session 1: Mr. Debasish Mallick, Deputy Managing Director, Export-Import Bank of India (moderator), Mr. Daniel Schmand, Chairman, Banking Commission, International Chamber of Commerce, Paris, France and Head of Trade Finance, Deutsche Bank; Ms. Mariia Minaeva, Phd., Head of Trade Finance, International Investment Bank; Dr. Bejoy Das Gupta, Former Chief Economist, Institute of International Finance; and Dr. C.P. Chandrasekhar, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Sub-session 2:Ms. Geetha Muralidhar, Chairman cum Managing Director, ECGC Ltd. (moderator); Mr. Vinco David, Secretary General, Berne Union; Dr. Biswajit Dhar, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Ms. Diana Smallridge, President, International Financing Consulting, Ltd, Canada; and Ms. Padmavathy R., General Manager, ECGC Ltd.

Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India was the Chief Guest during the Valedictory Session of the Annual Meeting. In his address, Mr. Suresh Prabhu highlighted the critical role of development financing institutions in meeting the sustainable development goals, and appreciated the efforts of the ADFIAP platform in discussing key issues pertaining to development financing. A Compendium of Articles on ‘Creating a Resilient Trade Finance Architecture’, put together by Exim Bank, was released during the Valedictory Session. The Compendium is an attempt to systematically present the impediments to trade finance and draw out innovative, inclusive and integrated strategies for scaling up trade finance and as a corollary catalysing global trade.

Other highlights of the annual meeting include the Welcome Dinner and Awards Night, the 87th ADFIAP Board of Directors Meeting, the 17th Extraordinary Meeting of the General Assembly, the Delegate-Meets-Delegate networking sessions, the drafting of the New Delhi Declaration, the Closing Dinner, and Fellowship Day.

A pre-meeting session on “Cleantech Finance Lab: Scaling Cleantech Innovation and Financing” was conducted in the afternoon of February 19. The event is under the EU-grant funded project, Asian Cleantech MSME Financing Network (ACMFN) https://www.acmfn.com/ that aims to build and leverage a cleantech financing eco-system to spark improved access to finance for Asian cleantech enterprises.

Two special presentations were also featured at the General Assembly Meeting. Mr. Nagaraja Rao and Ms. Marzia Perilli, Head of Investment Facilitation at PFAN and Associate Programme Officer at SAFIN, an initiative of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), respectively, introduced their programmes to the delegates.

The ADFIAP annual meeting serves as a platform for the members of the Association, partner-organizations, and invited guests to discuss issues affecting them, share best practices and solutions that benefit their organizations, promote their development programs, and explore business cooperation opportunities.