AIIB will live up to its 2016 goal, says bank's president

Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, delivers a special address during the opening ceremony of the 13th Beijing Forum on Nov 4, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com/cn]

"It’s true that the globalization has yet to bring benefits to all participated nations, and must do more actively and fairly, but the problem does not rest on the globalization per se, rather, it’s with global governance and integration." Jin Liqun, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, said during opening ceremony of the 13th Beijing Forum on Nov 4, 2016.

The Beijing Forum 2016 themed "The harmony of civilizations and prosperity for all—mutual trust, cooperation, sharing" was hosted by Peking University to explore the role of civilization in global resources sharing and cooperation. China’s Vice Minister of Education, Hao Ping, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General, S. Iqbal Riza, gave speeches during the opening ceremony. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, sent a video and said, "Hope we all could advance the peace, development and human rights with healthy planning."

"Nowadays, globalization is increasingly seen as a threat. How this threat is seen can define the choices to be made by many governments and people. Starting from the national level, many nations appear to find themselves at crossroads, where for next step, any direction is risky." AIIB's president Jin Liqun warned during the special address.

Jin clarified his views on the challenges of globalization and how AIIB hopes to foster sustainable economic growth. He said, "Inclusiveness in governance and reform is crucial, broad participation and responsibility should be shared by various bodies. So far, the lack of access to benefits is the lack of access to connectivity. This is the inefficiency in integration, not over-integration. Some nations have been unfortunately marginalized for too long. Moving forward U-term is never an option, moving forward a right direction in a right approach is the ultimate solution."

"Nevertheless, it’s a universal knowledge that investment in infrastructure is an important need for development, China and other emerging market economies have testified that it would effectively boost economic development through investment in infrastructure. Since China’s reform and opening-up policy has been launched, over 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty largely resulted from our broad economic and social development with one presupposition of investment in infrastructure."

"AIIB was created to foster sustainable economic growth and development, by investing infrastructure and other productive industries, to improve connectivity and to promote regional cooperation. To achieve this outcome, we must be inclusive to explore new development concepts, to meet needs of every member countries."

To introduce the cooperation that AIIB has already achieved, Jin said, "AIIB worked closely with other Multilateral Development Banks (MDB), like co-financing projects with World Bank, Asian Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Ten months into operation, our board of directors has already approved financing 829 million US dollars into 6 projects, include those co-financing projects with other institutes. With this rapid development pace, undoubtedly we could achieve 1.2 billion US dollars of the projects’ volume for 2016 whole year, and the top total of investment could be 6 billion US dollars."

"Our progress has been recognized broadly all around the world. European countries like [the] United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy decided to join AIIB as founding members have shown their confidence in us. We’re overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and support. We will live up to your expectation."

Founded in 2004 and granted by China’s Ministry of Education, the Beijing Forum has been held for 13 years and hopes to foster studies about common problems of global humanities and social sciences and contribute to common problems people face.