India's Prime Minister Tops U.S. Solar Pledge With Country's First Green Dollar Bond

摘要

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was winning headlines garnering U.S. support for a $160 billion solar power push, the bond market was putting together more concrete funding plans. Export-Import Bank of India, which has lent to solar and wind programs, sold the country's first green dollar bonds in a $500 million issue of 2.75 percent notes March 24. India's issuance of overseas securities meeting environmental criteria, and overseen by the Zurich-based International Capital Market Association, could surge to as much as $1.5 billion annually in the next two to five years, Commerzbank AG said. Modi got a pledge from President Barack Obama for unspecified funding to raise solar production to 100 gigawatts by 2022 from about three gigawatts and is fishing for more aid ahead of a climate summit in Paris later this year. The former leader of the state of Gujarat pioneered India's first solar incentives and restored wind farm tax benefits in July after a two-year hiatus. That has driven a rally in convertible notes of Suzlon Energy Ltd., the turbine maker that caused India's biggest default of such debt in 2012. "The government's thrust is on building green renewable sources of energy and that should prompt more local issuance," said Jaideep Iyer, Mumbai-based group president for financial management at Yes Bank Ltd. "We'll continue to seek the development of the market for green bonds."