World Bank aims to double agribusiness commitment by 2030

Washington: The World Bank plans to double its commitment to the agribusiness sector to $9 billion each year by 2030 as part of a push to create jobs...

Washington: The World Bank plans to double its commitment to the agribusiness sector to $9 billion each year by 2030 as part of a push to create jobs in developing economies, the bank's president said Wednesday.

Ajay Banga, who took over the 80-year-old development lender last year, told an event at the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington that there were some important shifts taking place in the agribusiness sector.

These include the growing risks to agriculture from climate change, and the creation of new financial tools for "derisking" the sector that should help boost private sector funding.

The shifts in the sector have arrived "at a time of extraordinary opportunity as global food demand is set to increase by 50 to 60 percent in the coming decades," he said.

The bank, Banga said, was "combining a new way of working with a new level of investment -- doubling our agrifinance and agribusiness commitments to $9 billion annually by 2030."