The Asian Development Bank (ADB), Mazda Motor

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $900m loan for upgrading 3,400km rural access road infrastructure in Sri Lanka.

ADB will provide finances for the rural road infrastructure upgrade in five tranches up to 2021. The road upgrade works will commence with ADB’s regular loan of $90m and a concessional loan of $60m in 2017.

The Sri Lankan Government of will contribute $184.6m of the $1.08bn total programme cost.

Road upgrade works are expected to be complete by 2027.

"The Sri Lankan Government of will contribute $184.6m of the $1.08bn total programme cost."

ADB loan will also be used for improving 340km of national roads in the eastern, northern, Uva, and western provinces.

A consortium consisting of Mazda Motor, Denso, and Toyota Motor have agreed to jointly develop basic structural technologies for electric vehicles (EVs).

As part of the contract, Mazda will provide product planning and computer modelling-based development, while Denso will provide electronics technologies and Toyota will provide Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform for the development of EVs.

The three companies will form a new company called EV CA Spirit, which will carry out research on technologies for improving the performance and functions of EVs.