New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday chaired the sixth meeting of the Governing Council (GC) of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) here.

The GC was presented with an update on NIIF’s overall strategy, progress, the investment status, sector focus, performance and way forward across its four active funds: Fund for infrastructure (Master Fund); The fund of funds (Private Markets Fund); Fund for climate and sustainability as well as India Japan corridor (the India Japan Fund); and The fund with focus in growth equity (Strategic Opportunities Fund).

Recognising NIIF’s growing role in mobilising capital into infrastructure and other key sectors of the Indian economy in line with the national priorities, the GC appreciated NIIFs performance and took note of the expansion in its Assets Under Management which has increased to more than Rs 30,000 crore while catalysing capital of Rs 11,7000 crore.

The GC appreciated NIIF’s evolution as a sovereign-linked asset manager and acknowledged the efforts made over the years to build strong partnerships with marquee investors, including, prominent sovereign wealth funds such as Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Temasek.

It also acknowledged pension funds such as AustralianSuper, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB); Multilateral Development Banks such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and New Development Bank (NDB): and strategic government counterparts such as the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC).

The GC appreciated that both Master Fund and Private Markets Fund are already 100 per cent committed and that a part of Master Fund investments have gone into creation of greenfield assets in areas such as ports and logistics, airports, and data centres.

The GC took note of progress on NIIF’s upcoming Private Markets Fund II which has a target corpus of $1 billion, and appreciated the fact that PMF II has successfully onboarded private investors — in line with the earlier GC guidance and is set for its first closing shortly.

The GC was also informed about the proposed bilateral Fund currently under discussion with USA. Guidance was also provided on aspects related to strategy, successful fund raising, timely operationalisation and effective deployment.

The GC advised NIIF to leverage its sovereign backed design and emphasised the need to professionally showcase its role and performance on the global stage and within the international investor community.

—IANS

na/