ADB sells $339 million 'clean energy' bonds

The Asian Development Bank said Wednesday it had sold $339 million worth of bonds to help fund investment in more environmentally-friendly power projects in the region.

The three- to four-year bonds, which are denominated in Australian dollar, Brazilian real, and Turkish lira, were sold to Japanese retail investors, the Manila-based lender said.

"Asia needs to meet its growing energy needs in ways that don't pollute the air we breathe or water we drink and to do that, there needs to be more investment in clean energy projects," the bank's treasurer Mikio Kashiwagi said.

The sale was the second of its kind by the ADB, which raised $232.2 million in the same currencies in September 2010.

While 700 million Asians still have no access to electricity, the ADB said the region accounted for about 27 percent of global energy consumption in 2007, and is expected to exceed 40 percent by 2050 as populations and wealth increase.

The bank said it invested $2.1 billion in a variety of clean energy projects last year, about half of them in renewable energy.

(c) 2012 AFP