New China-led bank to work for the region, says chief
April 12, 2015, 6:13 am

The AIIB is a China-initiated international financial institution aimed at supporting infrastructure projects in Asia. Beijing will host the headquarters of the Bank [Xinhua]

“Lean is cost effective; clean, this bank will have zero- tolerance on corruption; green means it’s going to promote the economy,” he said.

Jin is the secretary general of the interim multilateral secretariat of the AIIB.

The AIIB is a China-initiated international financial institution aimed at supporting infrastructure projects in Asia. Beijing will host the headquarters of the Bank.

The bank has seen more than 40 prospective founding members by Saturday, with Spain, South Korea and Austria as the most recent prospective founding members. The growing list of its European allies joining China’s alternative to the IMF and the World Bank has outraged Washington.

A US official earlier complained about “constant accommodation” of China by Washington’s EU allies, and Obama’s National Security Council issued a statement expressing concern over the AIIB’s environmental and governance standards.

The AIIB’s interim chief on Saturday said the Bank is not a political alliance, contrary to popular perception.

“China itself benefits enormously from the contribution by World Bank and the ADB. Now it’s time for China to do something more for this region. And the difference between AIIB and World Bank and ADB is that this bank focuses exclusively on infrastructure development,” said Jin.

“AIIB is a bank, not a political organization or political alliance. This guaranteed that it would be impossible to operate it in an untransparent way,” he added.

Long Yongtu, China’s former vice trade minister has said the growing list of members of the Bank makes its foundation stronger.

“Everything has two sides. It would pose some difficulty to the coordination of the positions and interests of all the member countries, especially many of which are at different economic level of development. But it is definitely not good news if the AIIB earned little response,” he said.

“AIIB is not China’s bank. Many people have put too much emphasis on politics; this is a misunderstanding towards AIIB,” said Long.

The authorized capital of the AIIB is $100 billion and the initial subscribed capital is expected to be around $50 billion. The paid-in ratio will be 20 per cent.

Founding members have agreed that GDP will be the basic parameter in determining share allocation among member countries in the Bank.

TBP and Agencies