State Bank, Macquarie to raise $2bln for infrastructure projects

New Delhi, Apr 16 (UNI) Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) and Australia's Macquarie Bank Ltd today said they will jointly raise two billion dollars to invest in India's infrastructure projects.

International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, along with SBI and Macquarie will contribute 450 million dollars in anchor investments for the fund, the banks said in a joint statement.

Potential projects have been identified and the fund will be launched in the second quarter of this year, the statement added.

According to the government estimates, about 500 billion dollars will be needed to build new roads, ports, airports and power plants by 2012.

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