After the new bank garnered support from countries like Britain and Germany, much focus has been trained on whether the U.S. and Japan, the world's largest and third largest economies, will join.
While stating that the U.S. will not join the AIIB at present, U.S. President Barack Obama said the country looked forward to collaborating with the new development bank "just like we do with the Asia Development Bank and with the World Bank"in April.
Despite outside worries that a new investment bank will challenge the established order of multilateral lenders, the IMF, World Bank and other leading global lenders have welcomed collaboration with the new bank to fill Asia's infrastructure gap.
Statistics from the ADB show that between 2010 and 2020, around 8 trillion U.S. dollars in investment will be needed in the Asia-Pacific region to improve infrastructure.
"We view the AIIB as an important new partner that shares a common goal: ending extreme poverty. With strong environment, labor and procurement standards, the AIIB will join us and other development banks in addressing the huge infrastructure needs that are critical to ending poverty, reducing inequalities, and boosting shared prosperity," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement after the signing ceremony.
Chinese officials have reiterated that rather than being a competitor, the new bank will complement the current international economic order and enable China to take more global responsibility.
The bank will start operation at the end of the year under two preconditions: At least 10 prospective members sign the agreement and the initial subscribed capital is no less than 50 percent of the authorized capital.
"We are confident of working with related parties to accelerate legal procedures and push for the official set up of the AIIB before the year end," Lou said.
TIMELINE
October 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the bank.
October 2014, 21 Asian nations, including China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore signed an agreement to establish the bank.
March 12, 2015, Britain applied to join the AIIB as a prospective founding member, the first major western country to do so. France, Italy and Germany quickly followed suit.
March 31, 2015, China announced that 57 countries joined or applied to join the AIIB as prospective founding members before the deadline.
Until May, five rounds of talks were held and consensus was reached on all key elements, such as the bank's purpose, membership, capital subscription, voting powers and decision-making structures.
June 29, 2015, delegates of the 57 prospective founding countries of the AIIB gathered in Beijing for the signing ceremony of an agreement to lay the legal framework and management structure for the bank.
