India won’t prevent fund flow to CPEC, says Piyush Goyal
India will not prevent funding for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through a multilateral institution like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), despite being critical of the $50 billion transportation project that it believes infringes on India’s sovereignty.
“Every multilateral bank has many dimensions and one cannot dictate which projects it must invest in, in other countries,” said Piyush Goyal, Union minister for finance, railways, coal and corporate affairs. “I think we should look at how we can benefit from such engageareas ments rather than focusing our efforts on trying to see what they should not be doing,” he said.
CPEC is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) being spearheaded by China to build transport infrastructure across Asia and Africa. It passes through Gilgit and Baltistan of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. India was isolated in its criticism of the project and was the only country at this month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that refused to endorse BRI. Beijing has signed agreements with about 80 countries and international organizations before it started work on BRI.
“The AIIB is an independent organization, it’s not a Chineseled institution,” Goyal reiterated. “India is the largest recipient of AIIB’s funds. We’ve received loans of $1.2 billion of the $ 4.4 billion sanctioned so far by the bank. We’re looking at a bouquet of 9-10 other projects (for AIIB’s financing). We should focus our efforts on this.”
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