The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) Board of Governors has approved Kenya’s request to join the Bank as a non-regional prospective member raising the membership to 86. Papua Guinea has also joined as a regional prospective member of the bank.
AIIB is a multilateral development bank that supports infrastructure projects in the Asia-Pacific region. Previously, the Bank had 64 members and 20 prospective members including Ethiopia.
The Bank’s Vice President and Corporate Secretary Sir Danny Alexander said: “We’re very happy to welcome Kenya and Papua New Guinea as prospective members of AIIB. [The Bank] now has 86 approved members from six continents. This shows a strong commitment to promoting infrastructure development through rules-based multilateral cooperation with high standards of governance.”
Kenya and Papua Guinea will join AIIB as soon as they finish the necessary domestic processes and deposit the first capital installment with the Bank. Share allocation to the two prospective members will consist of the current pool of unallocated shares.
AIIB was launched in January 2016 with 57 signatories to the Bank’s Articles of Agreement. The bank expects more nations to join it in the future.
