AIIB President Jin Liqun, file photo
The president of the young Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Mr. Liqun Jin, is an exciting personality with sure words and mastery of the details of his office and firm.
The former top chief of the World Bank exudes firmness in his grasp of what the bank is and targets. It was a delight interviewing him at the AIIB headquarters in Beijing last week weekend. The bank was created last year mainly at the behest of China on Christmas Day and commenced operation on January 17 this year. Apart from the founding member states, new members have joined including Canada that came in September after China hosted the G20 Summit. Egypt and South Africa are the only two African countries currently in the AIIB.
"The letter 'A' in AIIB can stand for Asia, Africa or America"
He hinted that irrespective of the phobia for the AIIB by the U.S. at its inception, the possibility of the country joining the bank when the president-elect, Donald Trump, is in power cannot be ruled out.
He said: "I have heard a certain senior official of the President Barack Obama speak good of the AIIB and after Donald Trump won, I was told that many in his team have an opinion that Obama was not right not to join the AIIB, especially after Canada joined, which was a very loud endorsement of the bank. So we can't rule out the new government in U.S. endorsing the AIIB or indicating interest to join as member."
Canada's membership became the 22nd non-Asian state member among the present 57 members. However, the test of the bank's popularity that started with a capital base of $100b, some 50% of that of the World Bank, is the line-up of close to 20 new countries intending to be part of the bank and most of them from outside Asia. At least, five of the new applicants are African countries. The Bank in October appointed Nigerian renowned economist, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala an adviser among nine others from all over the world.
The president restated the bank's willing to welcome new members as the old members with higher shareholding would drop more of their stakes to allow the new members have some shares, but after the next batch of members are admitted, Jin said there would hardly be any shares left for more countries to join. Very soon, the curtain would be drawn on the shortlist of the new members whose membership will take effect from January next year.
But the bank chief wants more African countries to join as he assured that the objectives of the AIIB includes assisting in the development of the smaller economies of the world no matter where located. To underscore the openness and overrule the phobia for it by U.S., Jin joked that "the letter 'A' in AIIB can stand for Asia, Africa or America. They all start with and that means the bank is for all of them."
"Our major consideration in extending facilities to governments or state members is whether such projects the fund would be used for will in any benefit of Asia and assist in bettering Asian economy and also that of the borrowing country. But we have a duty and obligation to ensure that we don't give impossible conditions to enable them utilize the funding and incentives of the bank. Every member state borrowing right is based not on the GDP but on shareholding and China has highest shareholding with 30% of the total volume. Right now, China is like a non-borrowing state member because if it does, it might crowd out other members that somehow need the fund more. But for the qualified borrower, the major plank for consent is on need and importance and not on shareholding capacity only. That implies that if a state needs to borrow and the AIIB is convinced that the need is compelling and there is prospect for profit in the targeted project the funding will be used for, the request would be granted as long as there is the collateral especially that of the economic potential of the project."
