The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has been taking measures to meet investment challenges and help bridge financing gaps and hopes to serve as a conduit in allowing partners and countries to share their development experiences, said Murtaza Syed, head of Ecosystem at the bank's Economics Department.
Syed was speaking during a panel discussion at the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), which opened in south China's island province of Hainan on Tuesday.
The four-day BFA Annual Conference, which this year marks its 25th anniversary, is being held under the theme "Shaping the Future Together: New Trends, New Opportunities and New Cooperation," and is hosting nearly 50 events, including a series of sub-forums, roundtables and dialogue sessions.
Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, economic fragmentation and technological transformation, Syed shared his views on how institutions such as the AIIB are helping bridge financing gaps and why he believes securing infrastructure development may hold the key to shared growth.
"It is true that the world has a lot of infrastructure needs, both traditional infrastructure as well as green infrastructure, because now we are seeing that infrastructure is coming under a lot of pressure from climate change and nature degradation. But also financing this infrastructure has become very difficult for many countries that are [facing the impact of conflicts]. My own country is one that suffers from fighting, Pakistan. So what can institutions like AIIB do to help countries like Pakistan? First of all, I think there is the investment that we can bring, that we can mobilize together with our other partners. We are the largest co-financier of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. We work very much together with other multinational development banks," he said.
Syed also outlined the key steps that can be taken to provide sufficient support to areas and region most in need of assistance.
"The first thing is to be able to bring financing to these countries. The second thing that institutions like mine can do is, of course, encourage peer learning among countries. So if, for example, China has some good development experience that you can share with Pakistan or Bangladesh, or India, or Türkiye, we very much are a convener of global knowledge on infrastructure. And the third thing I think that we can do, which is very important, is that we can use our own balance sheet to provide guarantees for projects, to provide our own financing as well to mobilize the private sector to join," he said.
Headquartered in Beijing, the AIIB was established in January 2016 with a mission to foster sustainable economic development, create wealth, and improve infrastructure connectivity in Asia and beyond by investing in infrastructure and other productive sectors.
AIIB aims to bridge financing gaps, mobilize partners to provide infrastructure investment support: official
