The $100-billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will boost infrastructure investment in Asia and improve integration, China’s President Xi Jinping said Saturday at the opening ceremony for the China-backed lender.
The AIIB will provide impetus for economic growth in Asia and the rest of world, Xi said Saturday at the event in Beijing to mark the emergence of the world’s first major multilateral development bank in a generation.
The Beijing-based AIIB will compete and cooperate with both the Washington-based World Bank and the Japan-led Asian Development Bank. The new lender is pivotal to Xi’s vision for China to achieve the same great-power status as the U.S., which opposed the creation of the AIIB. China will need to meet its pledge for a high standard of governance at the AIIB amid a slowdown in the country’s economy and a plunge in stocks.
