Newcomers take AIIB to milestone of 100 members

3 African nations approved at annual meeting as bank chief aims for ‘lean, clean and green’

Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which reached 100 approved members over the weekend, wants the AIIB to become the bank that connects Asia to the world.

The AIIB’s Board of Governors approved the applications on Saturday of three African countries — Benin, Djibouti and Rwanda — at the bank’s annual meeting in Luxembourg. This would bring the total number of AIIB members to 100, including 70 whose membership has already been ratified by their respective countries’ parliaments.

“AIIB members collectively account for 78 percent of the world’s population and 63 percent of global GDP. With the backing of all of our members, we are building a lean, clean and green institution that can help to support their sustainable development,” Jin said.

Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun said at the meeting on Saturday that he hopes the AIIB will give play to its advantage as a multilateral development bank to link its strategy with the development blueprints of its members, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Connecting Europe and Asia Strategy of the European Union.

“China, an AIIB shareholder and the country that hosts the AIIB’s head office, will continue to support the bank’s development,” Liu said.

Liu suggested that the AIIB make an overall strategy to guide its further development, based on previous operation experiences, its own features, new trends of global growth and the diversified requirements of members.

Uzziel Ndagijimana, Rwanda’s minister of finance and economic planning, called the AIIB “a great bank”.

“We are happy to join as the 100th member. We are looking forward to not only having fruitful cooperation with the bank, but also with the member countries to promote infrastructure and promote trade and investment between Asia and Africa,” he said on Saturday.

The three new prospective nonregional members will officially join the AIIB once they complete the required domestic processes and deposit the first capital installment with the bank.

At the annual meeting, the first held outside of Asia, Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna praised the AIIB as “arguably the most modern and international financial institution in the world”.

“The bank has emerged as the beacon of multilateralism while surpassing expectations of growth,” he said. Luxembourg was the first European nation to join the AIIB.

Gramegna said membership of European countries has been very beneficial for European and Asian countries alike. “Looking at the results of the past three and a half years, we can all be very pleased with what has been achieved, both in terms of financial operations and in terms of the quality of the work that has been done,” he said.

Since January 2016, the AIIB has provided $8.5 billion in loans to 45 projects in 18 member countries, many in renewable energy and green infrastructure. The AIIB has also received the highest credit ratings from the world’s three biggest rating agencies — Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch Group.

Jin said the bank has a good working relationship with other multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. “We set the bar at the par with other multilateral development institutions and other institutions, so we can work together,” he said, adding that “we are happy to see that we are recognized as such a bank”.

Jin said people should realize it takes time to help developing countries in their transition from high carbon to low carbon to zero carbon economies. “So it’s really a very tough job. And we are doing our very best,” he said in response to criticism that the AIIB was not doing enough.

Next year’s annual meeting will be held in Beijing, the AIIB’s Board of Governors announced on Saturday. Finance Minister Liu was elected as chairman of the fifth Board of Governors.

By the end of 2018, the AIIB’s total investment had reached $7.5 billion, up from $4.196 billion a year earlier, according to the annual report released on the bank’s website.

Jin Liqun, AIIB president