Singapore has committed up to US$500 million in concessional funding to support the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership (FAST-P) launched by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) last year. FAST-P is a blended finance initiative which combines public, private and philanthropic investment to support decarbonisation and climate resilience across the region. As announced at COP29, Singapore will pledge up to half a billion dollars as concessional capital, matched against investments on similar terms from governments, multilateral development finance institutions and philanthropies. This combined pool will crowd-in commercial capital and other funding, with the aim of raising up to US$5 billion to support Asia’s green and transition financing needs. FAST-P was launched at COP28 in December 2023 with support from Allied Climate Partners (ACP), Asian Development Bank, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Temasek, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund. AIA Group, HSBC, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) are in discussions for potential collaboration. FAST-P has established a new Industrial Transformation infrastructure debt programme, in addition to two existing blended finance programmes – the Energy Transition Acceleration Finance partnership and Green Investments partnership – announced at COP28. The latter is supported by ACP, IFC, MAS and Temasek, with Pentagreen Capital – founded by HSBC and Temasek - deploying capital to marginally bankable green and sustainable infrastructure in Asia, such as renewable energy and storage, electric vehicles, transport, as well as the water and waste management sectors. AIA, BlackRock, IFC, MAS, MUFG and NEXI have signed up to collaborate on the Industrial Transformation infrastructure debt programme. Separately. MAS announced a series of new green finance and capital markets initiatives to enhance financial cooperation with China, aimed at expanding cross-border green financing flows, enhancing bond market connectivity, and deepening collaboration on index and ETF products.
