By Ankit Panda
The AIIB’s Articles of Agreement entered into force, taking the China-led development bank one step closer to operational status.
On December 25, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) effectively launched in earnest, marking a major milestone in China’s bid to play a more active role in global governance and development. With the ratification of the bank’s Articles of Agreement by 17 member states, representing 50.1 percent of the bank’s capital stock, the AIIB entered into force. The members that have ratified that bank’s Articles of Agreement include Australia, Austria, Brunei, China, Georgia, Germany, Jordan, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
In a press release on the bank’s website, the AIIB interim secretariat noted that “Entry into force under Article 59 of the Articles of Agreement required deposit of such instruments by at least 10 Signatories with at least 50 percent of the shares allocated.” The next step for the bank as it moves toward becoming operational as a full-fledged multilateral development bank will be the inaugural meeting of its Board of Governors, which will be held on January 16 and 17 in the new year. The interim secretariat, in the same release, notes that “the Board of Governors will announce the commencement of operations, in accordance with Article 60 of the Articles of Agreement.”
The inaugural meeting of the Board of Governors is really when the bank will “kick off,” so to speak. According to Article 60 in the AIIB’s Articles of Agreement, the inaugural governors meeting will formally anoint Jin Liqun (whom I wrote about here), a Chinese bureaucrat and vice minister of finance, its first president. The meeting will additionally elect directors for the bank, set a start date for the bank’s formal operations, and decide a range of other administrative matters.
Read the full story at The Diplomat