The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), viewed by some as a rival to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, was formally established on Friday, according to a statement issued by Beijing.
The US and Japan — the world’s largest and third-largest economies, respectively — have notably declined to join the bank, which is expected to begin operations early next year, though others such as Australia, Germany and the UK have said they will take part.
AIIB is to be operational once its board of directors and executive council meets for the first time at an opening ceremony scheduled for Jan. 16 to Jan. 18, China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its official Web site.
Beijing is to be the largest AIIB shareholder with about a 30 percent stake, according to the legal framework signed by the bank’s 50 founding member countries in late June.
The bank is headquartered in Beijing and currently has 57 members. With authorized capital of US$100 billion, it expects to offer its first batch of project loans by mid-next year, according to the Xinhua news agency.
In related news, Minsheng Banking Corp (民生銀行), China’s largest private bank, is expected to provide 50 billion yuan (US$7.73 billion) in financial support to China’s violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang over the next five years, state media said on Friday.
Minsheng president Hong Qi (洪崎) said the bank would make Xinjiang one of its strategic development areas, especially due to Xinjiang’s location as a hub for China’s New Silk Road initiative, the official Xinjiang Daily reported.
The newspaper did not say what specific projects the money might go toward.
Chinese Communist Party Secretary in Xinjiang Zhang Chunxian (張春賢) said he hoped that Minsheng could help to lower financing costs for firms in Xinjiang and in the region’s overall development, the newspaper said.
Many Uighurs complain that only the Han Chinese benefit from Xinjiang’s economic growth, as a result of discrimination and the poor educational levels of Uighurs, including lack of fluency in Mandarin, the national language.
Hundreds of people have been killed over the past few years in Xinjiang, strategically located on the borders of central Asia, in violence between the Muslim Uighur people who call the region home and ethnic majority Han Chinese.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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