SAARC Development Fund’s mission was clear from the beginning – to promote Regional Integration and Economic Cooperation among the SAARC Member States through project funding and collaboration. To realize this mission, we at SDF continue to undertake a number of initiatives for the strategic growth of the region. The last 10 successful years have offered us new projects, partners for co-funding and many new interventions to enable SDF to become…
SAARC Development Fund held its 6th counterpart meeting of the SAARC region in the Maldives from 23 to 25th of October, 2019.
Chief Executive Officer of SAARC Development Fund, Dr. Sunil Motiwal, called on the Minister of Finance of Maldives H.E Mr. Ibrahim Ameer on October 25 in the Maldives. They discussed SDF funded projects and the possibility of further strengthening collaboration through project financing.
Colombo, Sri Lanka 23-24 August 2019 – SAARC Development Fund held its 31st Board Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka this week taking decisions on key issues to further promote regional integration and economic cooperation among its eight Member States.
Thimphu Bhutan, 13 August 2019 –The Ministry of Finance, Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB), SAARC Development Fund (SDF) and Drukair Corporation Limited today signed a US$13 million (around Nu 918 million) loan agreement to finance the purchase of Drukair ATR aircraft.
Thimphu Bhutan, 30 July 2019 – His Excellency the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Lyonchhen Dr. Lotay Tshering, visited the SAARC Development Fund (SDF) Secretariat to discuss strengthening of collaboration with SDF by exploring more investment opportunities.
“The SAARC region comprises 3% of the world’s area, about 23% of the world population and about 3.3% of the global economy and is considered as one of the fastest growing region in the world. The region is blessed with a considerable young population and abundance of natural resources”
“The Fund is working tirelessly to promote regional cooperation and integration and envisages acting as a catalyst for infrastructure funding in the region by forming consortium of funding agencies and co-financing of such projects”
“If you look at America and Europe, it (trade, travel and tourism) is intra-regional. But if you look at South Asia, it is least integrated region in the world. If you look at intra-regional trade, there is virtually no trade taking place in the SAARC region. There is no intra-regional travel and tourism as such multiplier impact of trade within the region has not benefited the SAARC countries”
“SDF may explore projects that facilitate intra SAARC investment. This will immensely help in economically integrating the South Asian Region will also facilitate development of supply chain in line with the competitive advantages of South Asian Nation, entail development of secondary and tertiary sector in key industries and also facilitate development of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME)”
“SDF to work closely with various Multilateral Development Banks, International Financial Institutions, Regional Financial Institutions, Scheduled Commercial Banks, Infrastructure Funding Agencies to form consortium of funding agencies in order to co-finance large infrastructure projects in SAARC Member States.
“SDF to continue focus on co-finance Regional connectivity projects in Transport and Energy sectors in the region along with other Multilateral Development Banks”
“Per the policy guidelines of SDF, loans can be extended to both the private and public sectors in SAARC Member States. SDF to extend more support to the private sector under the MSME sector in SMSs. Focus to be given to innovative and tech based MSME private clusters in SAARC Member States in due course of time”
“We plan to convert SDF into regional bank in the next 2 years”
“SDF focusing on Social, Economic and Infrastructure Areas”
“SDF Regional Cooperation unleasing opportunities”