29 July
A 5th Annual Meeting of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was held through videoconferencing yesterday morning.
Union Minister for Planning, Finance and Industry U Soe Win, in his capacity as the Governor for the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, served as the rotating Vice-Chair at the meeting.
The meeting was attended by President of the People’s Republic of China Mr Xi Jinping, AIIB President Mr Jin Liqun, Governors and senior officials from the 102 member countries. Chinese Minister for Finance Mr Liu Kun served as the Chair at the meeting.
President Xi Jinping delivered an opening remark at the meeting.
Union Minister for Planning, Finance and Industry U Soe Win and Minister for Finance and Economy Honorable Bjarni Benediktson from Iceland, also the Vice-Chair of the meeting, delivered opening speeches.
The AIIB held the annual meeting online due to COVID-19 pandemic. At the meeting, the governors chose the president for the second five-year term of AIIB; President of AIIB Mr Jin Liqun reported the performance improvements of AIIB; the governors confirmed and approved the new members from the proposed countries, the further implementations of AIIB and announced the country to hold the 6th annual meeting in 2021.
The governors approved the proposal of China and the current President of AIIB Mr Jin Liqun will serve as the President for the second five-year term. The 6th AIIB annual meeting will be held in UAE from 27 October to 28 October in 2021.
The AIIB’s purpose is to support the necessary investments to create development in infrastructures which play a vital role for investments between Asia and economically related countries.
The AIIB was formed in 15 April, 2015 in Beijing with 57 countries including Myanmar as Founding Members and the operation started in January 2016. At present, there are 102 member countries and US$19.6 billion has been invested in 87 projects in member countries.
Moreover, the bank announced to support loans to member countries to address COVID-19 crisis. It has set up AIIB COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility and has announced to provide between $5 billion and $10billion loans in 16 April 2020. Under that facility, it has been announced on 7 May this year to provide loans to the AIIB member countries under the International Development Association (IDA) of World Bank by establishing a $30 million Special Fund Window (SFP).
The annual meeting was also attended by Deputy Minister U Maung Maung Win and Director-General of Treasury Department Daw Si Si Pyone.
MNA (Translated by Ei Phyu Phyu Aung)
