AIIB to invest $200 mn in India’s wealth fund

Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is likely to invest around $200 million in India's first sovereign wealth fund, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), AIIB president Jin Liqun said in the national capital. AIIB, which started operations in 2016, has committed over $1 billion in five infrastructure projects in India so far and proposes to invest in 12 more, envisaging assistance of $3.5 billion.

Talking to the PTI, Jin said the bank will focus on funding infrastructure projects in the roads, energy and transport sectors. "We are working on some other projects also. For instance, the Indian government attaches importance to NIIF, the initial fund might be $1 billion, we may be chipping in $200 million," he said. Jin is in India to attend the curtain raiser ceremony of the upcoming Third Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the AIIB, which will be held in Mumbai this June.

Meanwhile, addressing the curtain raiser, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Monday, sought higher funding from the AIIB, and said that multilateral lending is needed to bridge the "infrastructure deficit" in the Asian region. Jaitley said that in hindsight, "I am glad that India decided to be a very active participant in the AIIB". The AIIB will hold its third annual meeting in Mumbai, on June 25-26, preceded by events in eight cities. Jaitley and Jin also unveiled the logo and the theme of the annual meeting. "We had very good meeting with the prime minister. We discussed the broad issues of cooperation between AIIB and India. And I told the prime minister I am very much pleased to see India as the second largest shareholder of AIIB. India is playing a very important role in the running of the bank," Jin said, a day after he called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who asked the bank to showcase and demonstrate successful projects, the news agency reported.

The AIIB chief also said the multilateral bank is "now interested in recruiting professionals from India." As of December 31, 2017, AIIB's board has approved 24 projects with a total amount of $4.23 billion in 14 member countries.