UK pledges US$ 50 million to AIIB Fund

BEIJING, Dec 16 (APP):The United Kingdom (UK) government is going to contribute 50 million US dollars to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)’s Project Preparation Special Fund.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond and AIIB President Jin Liqun have signed an agreement over the contribution, AIIB announced on its official website on Saturday.
The AIIB Project Preparation Special Fund was established in June 2016 to provide grant support primarily to low income developing member countries to prepare high quality projects. China and the South Korea committed 50 million US dollars and eight million US dollars respectively. The Fund is open for more contributions.
President Jin extended gratitude to the UK government for their strong support for AIIB, saying that the additional resources would help the bank’s low-income member countries to prepare projects that will meet AIIB’s standards.
Chancellor Hammond said that the UK strongly supports the AIIB’s vital mission to address the infrastructure gap in Asia.
Recently the Bank approved two special fund projects which include one million US dollars to Nepal to prepare an urban infrastructure investment project and 700,000 US dollars to Sri Lanka to prepare a solid waste management project.