UK Development Finance Body Launches Southeast Asia Renewables JV

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -British International Investment (BII), the UK's development finance institution, has set up a renewable energy joint venture focused on Southeast Asia with two partners, a joint statement said on Wednesday.

BII's partners in the Sustainable Asia Renewable Assets Company (SARA) are Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO and Swiss-based infrastructure investment manager SUSI Partners.

BII and FMO are investing $70 million and $50 million, respectively, in the venture, while SUSI will contribute the Dam Nai wind farm in Vietnam it acquired in October last year as a cornerstone asset, the three said in the statement.

Some of the funds will go into SUSI Partners' SUSI Asia Energy Transition Fund that focuses on sustainable energy infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia, they said.

SARA aims to build a 500-megawatt portfolio of greenfield renewable energy projects across Southeast Asia, a region that has relied mainly on fossil fuels to meet increasing energy demand driven by population expansion and its position as a growing global manufacturing and industry hub.

The International Energy Agency projects that the region will account for more than a quarter of global energy demand growth until 2035.

(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jane Merriman)