Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was elected as Chair of the ADB’s Board of Governors and the country will host the 46th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in New Delhi next year.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee

“India is very happy to accept the chair,” Mukherjee said at the closing business session of the 45th annual meeting of the ADB board of governors in Manila.

Mukherjee said while India was the founding member of the ADB in 1966, its lending operations in India began two decades later.

As a major multilateral lending organization, the Manila- headquartered ADB has 67 members, of which 48 are from Asia. The US and Japan are the largest shareholders of the bank while India is the fifth largest.

The lending support will go to key areas like transport, energy, urban development, agriculture natural resource management, finance and education.

Inviting ADB members to the next annual meeting to be held in New Delhi, Mukherjee said Philippines, host of the 45th conference, has set very high standards of hospitality and efficiency.