Iran buys shares of AIIB multinational bank

TEHRAN, Oct. 27 (MNA) – Iranian deputy economy minister has announced buying shares of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Deputy Economy Minister Mohammad Khazayee said, “Iran has set to buy shares at some multinational banks established by countries like Russia and China in order to be influential in certain regional organizations.” “Accordingly, we have finalized the purchase of a 2.8 per cent stake in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which has recently been launched by China,” Khazayee asserted. He further announced Iran’s plan to buy shares at New Development Bank (formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank) in which Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and some other countries are stakeholders; “nevertheless, negotiations need to be made to determine the exact amount of stake to be bought,” he underlined. Iran’s membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is significant due to the fact that the bank is going to compete with the World Bank. AIIB, which was launched in Beijing in October 2014 after 27 countries signed Articles of Agreement (AOA), is a multilateral development institution and the majority of its capital will be allocated to the construction of infrastructures. The headquarters of the bank will be located in Beijing, capital of China and having initiated the idea of AIIB, China is planning to invest a total of about $ 50 billion in the bank in order to own nearly 50 per cent stake of AIIB. As one of the founders of AIIB, the Islamic Republic of Iran joined the bank on April 7, 2014 as the 34th member. Various countries are members of the AIIB including Iran, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Luxembourg, Maldives, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Great Britain, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.