The President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Masatsugu Asakawa, and the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Li Qiang, have debated in Beijing opportunities to strengthen collaboration on climate change and development priorities.
Close collaboration between the ADB and China focuses on green development, climate change adaptation and mitigation, environmental protection, and improvement of elderly care services.
All ADB efforts in the country are aligned with its partnership strategy with China, 2021-2025. Asakawa praised China’s climate ambitions and goals, including its goal of peaking carbon by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.
“ADB fully supports the acceleration of China’s climate goals. Our pipeline of projects in the country reflects our strong emphasis on building climate mitigation and resilience approaches that can be shared and replicated across the region,” Asakawa said.
“As the climate bank for Asia and the Pacific, we look forward to deepening our collaboration to address this critical challenge facing our region.”
The ADB and its partners inaugurate the Alotau pier
Asakawa also held talks with ADB Governor and Finance Minister Liu Kun, State Council Development Research Center (DRC) Chairman Lu Hao, National Development and Reform Commission Vice Chairman Cong Liang , the President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Jin Liqun, and the President of the Export-Import Bank of China, Wu Fulin.
Asakawa and Lu witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the ADB and the DRC Center for International Development Knowledge to carry out a flagship joint study on “high-quality development” in China.
The study will make policy recommendations on China’s approaches to achieving high-quality development, emphasizing innovation, coordination, greening, openness and sharing as core components of development to improve people’s living standards.
The People’s Republic of China is a major contributor to ADB’s operations. Since 2005, it has contributed $276.6 million to the Asian Development Fund, which provides grants to ADB’s poorest and most vulnerable developing member countries, and $90 million to the China Regional Cooperation and Poverty Reduction Fund, which supports the process of poverty reduction, regional cooperation and knowledge sharing in Asia and the Pacific.
