Chinese finance minister says AIIB a win-win

BEIJING -- Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a win-win choice for each member as 21 Asian countries that are willing to join AIIB as founding members signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing AIIB (MOU) Friday.

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"It is very necessary to establish AIIB at present and it is a win-win choice for every country," Lou said, noting that in October 2013, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang announced the initiative of establishing AIIB during their respective visits to South East Asia countries.

Lou said for developing countries in Asia, AIIB can promote infrastructure development and help maintain steady and fast economic development; for Asia region as a whole, it can promote regional connectivity, strengthen self-development ability of this region and inject continuous momentum to economic development.

"For developed countries, it can expand investment demand and promote economic recovery. Moreover, it can help expand the global demand and promote the recovery of global economy," he added.

The minister said this initiative has been greeted with enthusiastic response from many countries. Thereafter, following the principle of "regional first and non-regional later" and "open regionalism" , China has had extensive consultations with both regional and non-regional countries.

"Up to now, we have had five rounds of multilateral consultation meetings and one ministerial working dinner with some Asian countries. We also convened an information sharing meeting to share information with regional countries that are interested in but have not decided to join AIIB," Lou said.

As agreed, Beijing will be the host city for the AIIB' s headquarters, according to Lou.

The 21 countries are Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will guide capital	ADB to work together with China-proposed AIIB