Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) gives a speech at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, in Washington D.C., the United States, April 24, 2017. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)
As a new multilateral international institution focusing exclusively on infrastructure, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) should become a platform for cooperation between China and the United States, Jin Liqun, president of the AIIB, said on Monday.
NEW DEVELOPMENT BANK ON INFRASTRUCTURE
In a speech at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, Jin said there was a lot of skepticism in the United States and Europe when China initiated the idea of the AIIB about three years ago.
Since then he has reached out to the White House, the State Department, and U.S. think tanks for a number of times to explain this idea, and now they have finally realized that the AIIB is a new multilateral development bank, which focuses exclusively on infrastructure, according to Jin.
"We just want to establish a bank which can deal with these shortfalls of financing for infrastructure investment in Asia and all of the borrowing countries in the future," he said.
Citing China's experience over the last four decades, Jin said China had borrowed from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and international capital markets to invest extensively in infrastructure from the 1980s through the mid-1990s, which laid the foundation for China's economic take-off.
"Given this experience, China believed that to promote broad-based economic and social development through investment in infrastructure and other productive sectors is really important," he said.
With authorized capital of 100 billion U.S. dollars, the bank aims to provide financing to address daunting infrastructure needs across Asia and promote economic development in the region.
PLATFORM FOR CHINA-U.S. COOPERATION
"This time I did have an opportunity to meet some of the officials in the new government," Jin said of his visit to Washington. His conversations with the Trump administration focused on how U.S. companies and the AIIB can work together to achieve a win-win situation, he added.
Jin said he has also engaged with some U.S. financial institutions, manufacturers and consulting firms and asked them to work with the bank.
It's not clear whether the Trump administration has expressed interest in joining the AIIB, but Jin said he would work with the United States on its membership.
Since the very beginning, the Chinese government has held the view that it would be a good thing if the United States, the world's the largest economy, was to join the bank.
"It should be the platform for cooperation between these two countries," said Jin.
