A new Chinese-led development bank has approved its first loans and expects to suffer no impact from Britain’s vote to leave the EU, the bank’s president said on Saturday at its first annual meeting.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), launched in January with 57 member governments, already has received expressions of interest from possible additional members, AIIB president Jin Liqun (金立群) said at a news conference.
He said observers from 24 other nations attended the meeting.
The bank’s board approved a total of US$509 million in loans on Friday for a power project in Bangladesh, slum-upgrading in Indonesia and road-building in Pakistan and Tajikistan, said Jin, a former chairman of China’s sovereign wealth fund.
“We have quite strong demand from borrowing countries,” he said.
Jin noted the shockwaves in financial markets following the vote by Britain — one of the AIIB’s biggest shareholders — to leave the EU but said the Asian bank would not be affected.
“This decision does not affect our bank’s future development,” he said. “I believe the UK will continue to play an important role in the development of this bank.”
China, the world’s second-largest economy, has the bank’s biggest voting stake with 26 percent of shares and has pledged to put up most of its initial US$50 billion in capital but has no veto power. India has the second-largest voting stake at 7.5 percent and Russia is third with 5.9 percent.
“AIIB is owned by all its members,” Jin said. “This is not China’s bank.”
China has chosen not to borrow from the AIIB to avoid “crowding out” other borrowers but might do so in “special cases,” Jin said.
The bank’s staff of 39 is expected to grow to 100 by the end of the year, according to a report by Jin to the board.
At the news conference, he said staff will be recruited worldwide, regardless of citizenship.
He said its controller, who is in charge of accounting, is from Japan, a non-member country.
Jin said the AIIB would require any lending project to be financially sustainable, “environmentally benign” and “socially acceptable.”
He said it would look for possible “green infrastructure” projects.
“We have set very high standards for projects we can finance,” he said.
The bank’s lending target this year is US$500 million to US$1.2 billion, and it might exceed that, according to Jin’s report to the board.
Its launch coincides with China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, which aims to build ports and other infrastructure to expand trade links between China and Europe.
Jin said the bank would support countries targeted by the Chinese initiative but would make its own lending decisions.
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