BEIJING: Pakistan has welcomed expansion of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and hoped it would have major role in boosting infrastructure network for common development in the regional countries.

China’s led bank is emerging as a strong source for providing financial support to member countries for improving the living- condition of their people, said an official of Pakistan Embassy here Saturday. 

Pakistan is among the founding members of AIIB, and has been supporting China’s initiatives of promoting cooperative partnership in the banking sector.

Meanwhile, the AIIB will review more than 30 new membership applications beginning in September, and the bank may have as many as 90 members by early 2017, outstripping the membership numbers of U.S. and Japan-led Asian Development Bank (ADB).

According to Jin Liqun, China-initiated AIIB is going to absorb the experience of current multilateral banks. However, we don't want to clone them, but rather innovate and expand on them," Jin said.

AIIB is initiating cooperation with private capital on pension and commercial insurance projects, aiming to foster the role of private capital in public affairs. The bank is also working on developing new financial instruments to build a more flexible and efficient investment system.

"AIIB upholds its universal procurement procedures and gives players from all countries a fair appraisal when bidding for contracts," Jin said.

The institution won't be limited to any one sphere, but plans to embrace projects in all fields, including transport, energy, electricity, communications and logistics. It will also consider both new projects and intelligent upgrades, according to Jin.

In June, AIIB approved $165 million in loans for a project in Bangladesh, the first batch of loans for the country from the China-led development bank.

AIIB, which launched formally in December 2015, particularly aims to support the construction of infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. Its 57 founding members include not only the BRICS countries (China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa) and four Group of Seven countries (Britain, France, Germany and Italy), but also Egypt, Australia and New Zealand. So far, the U.S. and Japan have not joined.