Team to visit Beijing next month

The government is sending a delegation to Beijing early next month to know about the detailed modalities of the proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), proposed by China, officials said Saturday.
The ministry of finance (MoF) officials said a delegation from the Economic Relations Division, led by its additional secretary Asif-Uz-Zaman, would leave Dhaka on September 03 for joining a "multilateral information sharing meeting" arranged by Beijing on September 05.
"Beijing has invited Dhaka and other aspirant countries that want to join as the founding member of AIIB for attending the meeting on September 5. Beijing will give details on the proposed multilateral bank," said an MoF official.
He said detailed terms and conditions on joining the AIIB as the founding member and its operation plan would be explained at the "multilateral information sharing meeting".
If Bangladesh finds favourable condition, it would then decide about its joining as a share holder and founding member of the proposed US$100 billion multilateral lender, the MoF official told the FE.
Meanwhile, China had invited Bangladesh early this month for joining at its "multilateral information sharing meeting" on September 05 following the interest shown by Dhaka in joining the newly proposed bank.
Another MoF official said China has already sent a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) including some terms and conditions of the intending members which is not quite clear.
"Now we need to know details about the terms and conditions on joining the bank.
Besides, we want to know how Bangladesh and the member countries will be benefited from this regional bank," he told the FE.
After knowing details at the next meeting in Beijing, Bangladesh delegation from ERD would submit a report to the government about the outcome after returning home.
Finance ministry of China in a letter to its Bangladesh counterpart has recently said some 20 countries have expressed their willingness to join the AIIB as the founding member in the last multilateral consultation meeting in Beijing.
China completed the multilateral consultation meeting on Aug 7-8 in Beijing where many willing nations participated.
Chinese finance ministry in its letter also said it would share the first-hand information, hold in depth discussion on the bank and the text of the MoU, already sent to the intending member countries.
Local financial analysts said AIIB could be a parallel multilateral regional bank like the existing Asian Development Bank for helping the poor and developing countries for boosting their infrastructure and reducing hunger.
In an initial plan, China has announced that it would provide $50 billion out of the $100 billion authorized capital of the proposed AIIB and the remaining $50 billion will be paid by the founding member countries.
Meanwhile, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have also announced that they would form a US$50 billion multilateral bank soon.
Bangladesh has also decided to join the new initiative of the BRICS nations.
Bangladesh is already a member of the World Bank and the ADB which are helping the country for reducing poverty and upgrading infrastructure.