The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the multilateral financial institution set up by China as an alternative to the World Bank, is sharply increasing its global lending despite the continuing suspension of its operations in Russia.
AIIB president Jin Liqun said in an interview the bank planned to “navigate the rough and tumble of geopolitical situations” to boost financing to “more than $10bn” in each of the three years to the end of 2025 from a total of $36bn since its founding in 2016.
Jin said lending to Russia, the AIIB’s third-largest shareholder, would remain frozen along with that to Belarus, which supported Moscow’s war in Ukraine.