Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

Overview
The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB; simplified Chinese 亚洲基础设施投资银行 ya3zhou1 ji1chu3 tou2zi1she4shi1 yin2hang2) is a financial institution founded with the goal of connecting Asia and solving the plentiful issues in infrastructure that many Asian countries are suffering from. The AIIB president is Jin Liqun.

Goals
The AIIB works to offer sovereign and non-sovereign finance to help create energy, communications, transportation, and other development projects. They have six main areas that their projects and finance helps with. The six areas are energy/power, transportation/telecommunications, rural infrastructure/agriculture development, water supply/sanitation, environmental protection, urban development/logistics. The AIIB provides financial support for these projects in countries all over Asia. According to the official AIIB website, (www.aiib.org ) Articles of Agreement states they will “provide or facilitate financing to any member, or any agency, instrumentality or political subdivision thereof, or any entity or enterprise operating in the territory of a member, as well as to international or regional agencies or entities concerned with economic development of the Asia region.” The AIIB works to build the agreements and partnerships with countries all over Asia and Europe. AIIB and IDB(inter-American investment corporation) have had chief executive Officer James P. Scriven sign a memorandum of understandings to help build the cooperation between AIIB and IDB in common sense of interests(AIIB.org). AIIB have also made their first loan to in India for $160 million to help strengthen the state of Andhra Pradesh.

The AIIB bank has a capital of $100 billion which is 2/3 the capital of Asian Develop Bank and half of World Bank. On April 23, 2017 the World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and AIIB President Jin Liqun signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation and knowledge sharing between the institution. the memorandum for understanding provides an overall framework for cooperation between the World Bank Group and AIIB in commen areas of intrest, including development financing, staff exchanges and analytical and sector work. It paves the way for the two institutions to further enhance coordination at the regional and country levels.(AIIB.org)

Seeking Private Investments
The AIIB will continue working to develop cean energy and more sustainable cities, as well as promoting cross regional and cross border development, according to the banks vice-president. But the bank executives also said recenetly that their third goal is to explore private financing and look to find long term investros that can help the bank carry out its pluthera of development projects. In order to attract private investments, the AIIB wants to creat a diverse portfolio and a wide variety on projects they are working on. In a recent years they have increased their number of members from 57 countries to 86 member countries. China is the largest stakeholder among the 86 countries. WIth rapid growth and continuing to build and finacne a wide variety of development projects, the AIIB is on its way to further rival the World Bank and increase development of many countries.

Clients
AIIB has actively been assigning and completing a variety of projects in their covered areas. By helping these countries improve in the area they are helping them in, AIIB is fostering their relationships with these countries. By doing this they create allies and trade partners. AIIB has a specific process for choosing their projects and completing them once they are chosen. As of just recently, the AIIB has approved 13 new members that they will build and foster relationships with. This is the first time they have added new members since the bank originally opened. Canada, Belgium, Ethiopia, Hungary, Ireland, Peru, Republic of Sudan and Venezuela were the non-regional countries added. Hong Kong, Afghanistan, Armenia, Fiji and Timor Leste were the regional countries that were added to the AIIB member list. With these additions, the AIIB has 70 official members, and at least one on almost every continent.

Impacts
During the six years up to 2007 China’s GDP grew at an average rate of 11 percent, with investment equaling 41.5 percent of GDP. The current account surplus was rising in this period, reaching over 10 percent of GDP. In the six years since the global crisis, the external surplus has dropped sharply into the range of 2 to 3 percent of GDP, but the decrease in demand was made up almost completely by a gain in investment, which has reached more than 50 percent of GDP in recent years.(brookings.edu)