57 founders for infrastructure bank
Print Edition
A TOTAL of 57 countries have been approved as founding members of the Chinese-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China’s finance ministry said yesterday.
No nations that formally sought to become founding members of the AIIB are known to have been refused.
The last seven countries approved as founding members by yesterday’s deadline were named by the ministry as Sweden, Israel, South Africa, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Portugal and Poland.
The 57 include four of the United Nations Security Council’s permanent five, 14 of the 28 European Union countries, and 21 members of the 34-strong Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The line-up does not include the United States or Japan but represents a diplomatic success for China after close US allies such as Britain, France, Germany and Australia decided to take part even after Washington initially opposed them signing up.
The institution aims to finance infrastructure across Asia rather than poverty reduction, and Xinhua news agency said in a commentary that it offered Western countries “lucrative business opportunities.”
“Welcoming passengers from around the world, an ‘Oriental Express’ train is getting ready to hit the rails toward a destination of common development and win-win cooperation,” it said.
The AIIB would “have a zero-tolerance policy on corruption” and “abide by stringent policies to avoid repeating past mistakes,” the commentary added.
China has said the institution is “open and inclusive.”
The new bank has approved Norway despite cutting all high-level ties with Oslo after the Nobel Peace Prize went to Liu Xiaobo in 2010.
Shi Yaobin, a vice finance minister who is chairing the negotiations to set up the bank, said in a statement issued yesterday that although the founding members had been finalized, the institution would “continue to accept new members in the future.”
The founding members will hold two preparatory meetings in Beijing and Singapore and sign the bank’s articles of agreement by the end of June, he said.
The member states will choose AIIB’s first president after the launch, the vice minister said, adding that senior executives will be hired in an “open and transparent” manner.
Taiwan failed to have its application for founding membership approved, but Beijing has said that it would welcome the island joining the bank later “under an appropriate name.”
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