The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Thursday announced the approval of the establishment of an interim operational hub, its first overseas office, as the fast-growing bank aims to expand its global presence.
Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be the hub’s preferred location, “pending formal agreement to be finalized during the coming weeks,” the AIIB said in a statement sent to the Global Times.
The designation of the UAE as the preferred location is due to its best fitting the bank’s selection criteria, notably its superb connectivity to the bank’s global membership, according to the AIIB.
The UAE is one of AIIB’s founding members. As one of the region’s fastest-growing economies, the UAE has been actively promoting green transition.
The bank’s rapid growth is “the catalyst for opening an office that helps bring the bank both closer to its clients and to the front lines of its business,” read the statement.
The AIIB started with 57 founding members in 2016, and its membership has now grown to 105. The bank has developed a portfolio of 181 projects in 33 member countries involving a total of $35.7 billion to date.
The new hub is intended to provide “proximity to global financial centers and connectivity with the international infrastructure ecosystem which is important to maintaining AIIB’s commercial momentum.”
The AIIB envisions the would-be overseas office to serve as a robust platform to enable effective supervision of the bank’s growing investment portfolio, strengthen the bank’s project monitoring and implementation services globally.
The new site of AIIB headquarters near the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing Photo: cnsphoto
