BEIJING, China: As many as 21 Asian countries including Pakistan have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing.
In this regard, a signing ceremony was held in the Great Hall of the People in the Chinese capital on Friday.
The countries which were among the signatories included Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
“In China we have a folk saying,” the Chinese President Xi Jinping said after the ceremony. “If you would like to get rich, build roads first, and I believe that is a very vivid description of the very importance of infrastructure to economic development.”
The authorities said that the bank which is anticipated to have an initial capital of $50 billion mostly provided by China, aims to meet the need for the construction of dams, ports, power plants and telecommunications networks in Asia.
The AIIB will be an inter-governmental regional development institution in Asia with Beijing as its headquarters.
The bank will be operative by end of 2015.
