Japan to provide Rs 6,916 crore loan to India

New Delhi, Mar 30: Japan will provide 184,893 million yen (about Rs 6,916 crore) to India as official development assistance (ODA) for FY 2006 to fund various projects, it was announced today.

This is an increase of 18.93 per cent over last year ODA.

The loan will fund eleven projects in power transmission, environment, forestry, water supply and sewerage, urban transport and port sectors.

An exchange of notes to this effect took place here between Mr Kumar Sanjay Krishna, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance, and Japanese Ambassador Yasukuni Enoki.

The rate of interest will be 1.3 per cent per annum for the general projects except for Visakhapatnam Port expansion project and Bangalore distribution upgradation project for which the rate of interest will be 0.75 per cent per annum.

The repayment period will be 30 years (including a grace period of ten years) for the general projects except for Visakhapatnam Port expansion project and Bangalore distribution upgradation project, for which the repayment period will be 15 years (including a grace period of five years).

The rate of interest for the environment and forestry sector projects will be 0.75 per cent per annum and the repayment period will be 40 years (including a grace period of ten years) India is the biggest bilateral loan recipient from Japan.

Indo-Japan bilateral development cooperation has seen remarkable and progressive expansion in recent years. Japan provided 155,458 million yen (about Rs 5,910 crore) for projects in FY 2005.

The total ODA loan commitment till FY 2006 has become 2437.430 billion yen (about Rs 92,622 crore).

At present, 45 projects are being implemented in India with Japanese loan assistance of 678.095 billion yen (about Rs 25,768 crore).

India and Japan have a long and fruitful history of bilateral development cooperation since 1958. This is expected to be further strengthened and broad-based in future.

UNI