The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $631M in loans and grants to develop the Vishakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor in India.

The 800km corridor is a key part of the planned 2,500km East Coast Economic Corridor that will ultimately extend from Kolkata in West Bengal to Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.

The Visakhapatnam-Chennai corridor will be the first industrial corridor to be developed along India’s coast.

The loans and grants approved by ADB include a $500M two-tranche facility for the construction of key infrastructure and a $125M two-tranche loan to support industrial policies and business promotion.

The funding also includes a $5M grant from the multi-donor Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund managed by ADB for the construction of climate change resilient infrastructure, as well as $1M technical assistance to help the Andhra Pradesh local government manage the corridor.

Additionally, the project, estimated to have an overall cost of $846M, will receive a contribution of $215M from the Indian government.

Manoj Sharma, principal urban development specialist at ADB’s South Asia department, said: “By combining state-of-the-art industrial clusters, efficient transport, and reliable water and power supplies with a skilled workforce and good business policies, we expect the Visakhapatnam-Chennai industrial corridor to become a favoured investment destination.

“We estimate that by 2025, annual industrial output along the corridor will increase fourfold to $64bn from about $16bn in 2015 if investment opportunities are maximized over the coming 10 years.”

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