Arun Jaitley to attend first AIIB annual meeting at Beijing

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be leaving for Beijing later in the week to attend the first meeting of the Board of Governors of the $100-billion Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Jaitley, who will reach Beijing on June 24, will participate in the AIIB meeting the next day. He will also address a session on 'Infrastructure and Global Economic Growth' on June 26.

The first annual meeting of the Board of Governors of AIIB will be held in Beijing on June 25-26.

On June 27, Jaitley will meet Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei to discuss bilateral issues, official sources said.

He will also meet National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Xu Shaoshi and People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan.

During his visit, Jaitley will meet select Chinese investors and bankers to sell the India growth story and seek investment in sectors like infrastructure.

On June 27, he would also participate in the eighth India-China Financial Dialogue.

BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa founded the AIIB to boost infrastructure investment in Asia.

Besides AIIB, the BRICS nations have also founded the BRICS Development Bank. The two join existing bodies including Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank in offering finance to developing nations.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was the last new multilateral lending institution that was set up in 1991 to help rebuild former Communist nations in Eastern Europe after the Cold War.