Tuesday, September 24, 2013

US$100m Green Tech fund launched

Malaysia has partnered with Japan-based Asian Energy Investments Pte Ltd (AIE) in a US$100 million investment mega-fund to seed promising new ideas and innovators in Southeast Asia.

In a joint statement today, the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) and New York Academy of Sciences said a Malaysia-based fund management company, Putra Eco Ventures Inc, will be established.

"The company will channel the investments and provide business consultancy services to green technology companies," it said, adding that the fund would focus on investments in small-to mid-sized technologies and enterprises.

Science Advisor to the Prime Minister Prof Datuk Seri Zakri Abdul Hamid said the new green energy venture capital fund was a wise investment in developing a family of new technologies able to draw and store energy from renewable, inexhaustible sources such as the sun, wind or tides. 

"Demand for these products and businesses will be again driven by consumer convenience, cost advantage and environmental necessity, and logic dictates that they will eventually trumps non-renewable fossil fuels in global markets short years or decades from now," he said. 

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak presided at the announcement, made at a meeting in San Francisco of the Prime Minister’s Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC), made up of distinguished leading global sustainable development experts. 

The fund management company will also be charged with helping revive Malaysian biodiesel plants idled by sharp increases in the price of crude palm oil, on which the plants depend for feedstock, investigating cheaper biodiesel feedstocks, including municipal waste and waste oil palm biomass. 

Malaysia’s interest in the new fund will be managed by MIGHT, 
represented by its wholly-owned subsidiary, MIGHT Technology Nurturing Sdn Bhd. 

AEI is an offshore investment arm of Industrial Decisions Inc. of Japan, which is under the umbrella of Mizuho Financial Group. 

The announcements conform with advice offered by leading development experts on Malaysia’s Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council, who consider investments in green energy as the top priority for countries looking to move up the world’s financial ranks.-- Bernama

Read more: US$100m Green Tech fund launched http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/20130924111713/Article/index_html#ixzz2fmnssuyh

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