Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was today elected as Chair of the ADB's Board of Governors and the country will host the 46th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in New Delhi next year.

Speaking at the closing business session of the 45th annual meeting of the ADB board of governors in Manila, Mr. Mukherjee said, India is very happy to accept the chair.

He said, while India was the founding member of the ADB in 1966, its lending operations in India began two decades later. Mr. Mukherjee said, this 25 years of partnership has been an exciting and challenging journey, and added that he was honoured.

As a major multilateral lending organization, the Manila-headquartered ADB has 67 members, of which 48 are from Asia. The US and Japan are the largest shareholders of the ban while India is the fifth largest.