AIIB head fields questions from news executives

John Nery, editor-in-chief, Inquirer.net

What is the budget of AIIB?

I enjoyed living in the Philippines for a good five years when I served as vice-president of the Asian Development Bank. That platform gave me a lot of opportunities to communicate with people in member countries and also helped me learn more about your great country. The Philippines is a founding member, and we certainly will look forward to new opportunity to develop a strong relationship with your country.

We are early in the stages and it's not responsible for me to give you some definite figure of how much we can lend a year, but maybe I can offer you some examples. ADB has a capital base of $160 billion. Roughly, there is $16 billion for lending out in a year. The World Bank has $257 billion; their lending program is probably $25-$26 billion a year. So that kind of reference probably would help you to more or less arrive at a rough idea.

We depend on the experience of the IMF, World Bank and ADB if we want to learn more about the macroeconomic situation of the country. We don't have to duplicate the research in these areas. Instead, we can focus our resources on research in some other areas, such as renewable energy. But we don't have to duplicate the efforts of other institutions.

You see, it is truly important for us to keep in mind any country would have a need, a special, particular need. Just quote Jane Austen. If I remember correctly, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." And this wife is a matter of preference.