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Beijing: The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) announced on Thursday the opening of its first office outside its Beijing headquarters, in what appears to be an attempt to negotiate China’s Covid-19-related policies, including restrictions on international travel and strict quarantine requirements for returning By.
The new “temporary” office will be located in Abu Dhabi, one of the founding members of the multilateral bank, the AIIB said in a press release on Thursday.
The West Asian emirate was chosen because of its ties to many of the bank’s 105 members, which officially launched in 2015 and started operations the following year.
“The AIIB’s board has approved the establishment of the Interim Operations Center (the Hub), the bank’s first overseas office,” the multilateral lender said in a statement on Thursday.
“The preferred location for the hub will be Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), pending a formal agreement to be finalized in the coming weeks,” the statement said, adding that the “hub” location best matched the bank’s selection criteria, “…especially good connections to the bank’s global membership”.
The bank’s statement did not link the opening of the new office to Covid-related restrictions in China, but to the bank’s “rapid growth”, saying the expansion of bank members was “…a catalyst for the opening of offices… , which will help the bank bring closer to the customer and the front line of the business.”
“The hub is also close to global financial centres and connected to an international infrastructure ecosystem, which is important to sustain AIIB’s commercial momentum,” the statement said.
Given that the bank currently has a portfolio of 181 projects in 33 member countries worth $35.7 billion, China’s strict zero-coronavirus policy, marked by lockdowns, mass testing and strict quarantine policies, could hamper this “business momentum”. ”, especially monitoring ongoing projects.
AIIB officials have insisted that the bank follows strict protocols and good practices during the implementation of the projects it finances, and that doing so remotely may not always be sufficient and effective in the context of travel restrictions.
For AIIB officials, each field trip abroad means weeks of quarantine upon returning home.
“The center will provide the AIIB with a robust platform to effectively oversee its growing portfolio and enhance its project monitoring and implementation services globally,” the statement said.
The statement noted that the opening of the Abu Dhabi office could be just the beginning.
The center has been designated as a “temporary” operation to gain experience before establishing AIIB’s long-term global operations, the bank statement said.
Based on this experience, the bank will seek board authorization to open additional offices to better serve the growing client roster and expand the stakeholder community. “
India, the AIIB’s second-largest shareholder after China, has been the bank’s largest borrower since 2016, and has so far secured some 34 projects worth more than $8.7 billion.
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