The World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank entered into an agreement to co-finance development projects in Asia, according to a press release posted on April 13 on the World Bank’s website.
World Bank Group President Kim Jim Yong and AIIB President Jin Liqun signed the co-financing framework agreement.
“As the world’s multilateral development banks collaborate ever more closely, leveraging each other’s financing and expertise, the people who will benefit the most will be the world’s poor,” said Kim.
East Asia, Central Asia and South Asia will particularly benefit from the World Bank-AIIB investment projects, numbering to “nearly one dozen.”
The projects aim to address the needs of the “sectors that include transport, water and energy.”
Kim said that he was “delighted” with the partnership. Jin expressed a similar sentiment when he said that he was “very pleased” to sign the agreement.
“ . . . we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with ongoing cooperation in project co-financing and other areas,” said Jin, the country’s former vice minister of finance.
Kim, the 12th president of the World Bank, also said that signing the agreement serves as an “important first step . . . to address the world’s huge infrastructure needs.”
“Some 1.2 billion people in the world lack access to electricity and 2.4 billion people don’t have access to basic sanitation services,” said the World Bank on its press release.
The two financial institutions were “originally seen as possible rivals,” according to The Economic Times.
Conceived in 1944, the World Bank, headquartered in Washington, D.C., endeavors to attain two bold goals by 2030, according to its website. The first one is to “end extreme poverty by decreasing the percentage of people living on less than $1.90 a day to no more than 3 percent.” Second is to “promote shared prosperity by fostering the income growth of the bottom 40 percent for every country.”
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang envisioned Beijing-based AIIB “to promote interconnectivity and economic integration in the region" and "cooperate with existing multilateral development banks,” according to its website.
AIIB “welcomes all regional and non-regional countries, developing and developed countries, that seek to contribute to Asian infrastructure development and regional connectivity.”
After signing the agreement, Jin thanked the World Bank for its “generous and timely support” when AIIB was establishing itself, according to the press release.