AIIB’s president Jin stresses desire to work with WB
JIN LIQUN, president of the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, has sought to ward off suspicions that the AIIB is aiming to overthrow the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank in its role as an infrastructure-related lending institution.
At the ADB’s annual conference on “New Asian-European Approa-ches on Finance and Infrastructure” on Tuesday, Jin stressed that AIIB would like to cooperate closely with both the WB and the ADB, which it considers sister institutions, in financially supporting infrastructure projects for member and non-member countries.
In his long career, he spent six years with the WB and five years at the ADB before moving on to take over as president of the AIIB, so any criticism or insult against the other two banks is also an insult against him, he said.
However, Jin was quick to emphasise that unlike the ADB, which might focus on poverty reduction, the AIIB would focus on infrastructure lending, because if infrastructure is in place, it will help tackle economic or poverty problems.
The ADB estimates that some US$800 billion (Bt28 trillion) will be required in infrastructure investment in Asia over the coming decade.
That leaves a broad scope for the AIIB and other development institutions to play a role or cooperate in filling the financing needs for countries in this region and beyond, he said.
The AIIB follows three lending principles.
Infrastructure projects that meet the bank’s requirements must have financial sustainability, since the AIIB is not a charity organisation, and must be environmentally friendly and socially acceptable.
The AIIB will also adopt international best practices in universal recruitment and universal procurement. This should adequately address criticisms that China might unload its industrial overcapacity on the AIIB’s lending projects, he added.
The ADB also reported that it leveraged a record $10.74 billion in co-financing last year.
Combined with $16.44 billion from its own resources for grants, loans and technical assistance, total assistance reached $27.17 billion, the ADB’s Office of Co-financing Operations (OCO) said in its annual report released at the bank’s annual meeting in Frankfurt.
The co-financing figure includes $6.17 billion – the highest amount ever raised through robust partnerships with bilateral and multilateral organisations, foundations, corporations and other sources of concessional funds – to support 69 investment projects and 85 technical assistance projects.
Despite global fiscal constraints, financing support from these development partners increased by 39 per cent from $4.43 billion in 2014. The remaining amount came from commercial co-financing.
“We are grateful for the contributions from our development partners,” OCO head Rune Stroem said.
“Through joint efforts and deeper collaboration, we experienced an unprecedented level of co-financing in 2015. “Together with our partners, we intend to improve delivery of programmes and projects to yield concrete and measurable results for our developing member countries.”
