The Asian Development Bank (ADB), a lender to developing countries in Asia, plans to help raise more than US$2 billion in private equity and venture capital to boost clean-energy spending in the region, an official said.
The bank is evaluating a program to invest as much as US$100 million in venture capital funds to raise US$1 billion and is investing US$100 million in five private equity funds, which plan to finish raising US$1 billion by next year, said M. Shin Kim, an investment specialist at the ADB.
“ADB is trying to convince investors in the US and Europe to come and invest in Asian clean energy ventures,” Kim, who is developing these funds, said in an interview by phone and e-mail. “We are looking at a new initiative now in venture capital as the missing piece of the puzzle is early investors in Asia.”
The ADB plans to “channel” around US$700 million from two new investment funds focusing on clean technologies and carbon mitigation to member countries as part of a global US$6.1 billion initiative to help developing countries meet the cost of combating climate change, it said on Thursday.
The ADB is targeting annual investments of US$2 billion in clean energy projects by 2013 up from US$230 million in 2003.
The UN invited more than 190 countries to meet in Copenhagen for talks starting yesterday on a treaty to extend or replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose caps on greenhouse gases expire in 2012.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group