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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said multilateral development banks have an important role in reducing investment risks, improving project bankability and building investor confidence to attract private capital across BRICS economies. Speaking at a seminar on the New Development Bank’s role in private capital mobilisation, she said development finance should increasingly be based on partnerships between governments, multilateral institutions and the private sector. She highlighted India’s sustained public infrastructure investment and measures such as Viability Gap Funding, the Hybrid Annuity Model, InvITs, the National Infrastructure Pipeline and PM Gati Shakti to support greater private participation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said multilateral development banks need to play a stronger role in reducing investment risks, improving the bankability of projects and building investor confidence to mobilise private capital at scale across BRICS member countries.
Speaking at a seminar on the role of the New Development Bank in mobilising private capital in member countries, held alongside the BRICS Finance Ministers' and Central Bank Governors' Meeting in Jaipur, Sitharaman said development finance would increasingly need to focus on partnerships between multilateral institutions, governments and the private sector.
New Development Bank President Dilma Rousseff also addressed the seminar.
Sitharaman said India had strengthened its infrastructure ecosystem through sustained public capital expenditure and structural reforms, with public investment increasing considerably over the past decade. These investments have supported the creation of national assets across highways, railways, ports, logistics networks, digital infrastructure and energy systems.
She said the government's approach was to use public capital as a catalyst for private investment rather than as a replacement for it. This approach has been supported by several mechanisms aimed at making infrastructure projects more attractive to private investors.
Among the measures highlighted by the finance minister were Viability Gap Funding (VGF), the Hybrid Annuity Model (HAM), credit enhancement mechanisms, Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs), the National Infrastructure Pipeline and the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity.
The government has also been expanding the infrastructure pipeline through projects covering transport, logistics, waterways and other sectors. Sitharaman pointed to measures announced in the Union Budget 2026-27, including new dedicated freight corridors and high-speed rail corridors, the operationalisation of new national waterways and the Coastal Cargo Promotion Scheme.
She said BRICS economies remain among the major growth engines of the global economy but face similar structural difficulties in attracting private capital at the required scale.
According to Sitharaman, the issue is not simply whether capital is available, but whether investment conditions provide confidence, stability, predictability and credible long-term frameworks. She said these factors would be necessary for sustained private-sector participation across BRICS member countries.
The finance minister also stressed that the future of development finance would depend on partnerships. Multilateral institutions, governments and private companies each bring different capabilities and strengths to development projects, making cooperation between them important for mobilising capital and implementing projects.
Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur said the discussion was particularly relevant as development finance enters a phase where the need for greater scale has to be matched with resilience. She said capital mobilisation cannot depend only on favourable market conditions and needs to be supported by durable institutional and policy frameworks.
The seminar brought together senior policymakers, representatives of multilateral institutions and private-sector leaders to discuss ways of increasing private investment in development projects across BRICS economies.
A panel discussion included Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India Chairman Ajay Seth, New Development Bank Vice-President Roman Serov, Alessandro Teixeira of Sertrading, Tencent Senior Advisor Yongping Zhai and Pankaj Sindwani of the Tata Capital Decarbonisation Fund, among others.
Representatives from BRICS member countries, financial institutions, think tanks and academic institutions also took part in the discussions.
Source PTI
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