New Delhi, Oct 4 (IANS): The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has entered into a collaboration with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to launch a $600 million India-Japan Fund with JBIC and the Centre as anchor investors, the Union Finance Ministry announced on Wednesday.

The announcement marks NIIF’s first bilateral fund with the Centre, contributing 49 per cent of the target corpus and the remaining 51 per cent contributed by JBIC.

The Fund will be managed by NIIF Limited (NIIFL) and JBIC IG (a subsidiary of JBIC) will support NIIFL in promoting Japanese investments in India.

This joint initiative signals a key dimension in the collaboration between the two countries in the priority area of climate and environment.

The India-Japan Fund will focus on investing in environmental sustainability and low carbon emission strategies and aims to play the role of being a ‘partner of choice’ to further enhance Japanese investments into India.

The setting up of the India-Japan Fund represents a key milestone in the strategic and economic partnership between the governments of Tokyo and New Delhi, the Ministry added.