CRI听力:Luxembourg Becomes AIIB's Prospective Founding Member

Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei speaks at the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 24, 2014. Twenty-first Asian countries that are willing to join AIIB as founding members on Friday signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Establishing AIIB. [File Photo: Xinhua]

Luxembourg has been approved as one of the prospective founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China's Ministry of Finance announced on Friday.

The decision was made by all the existing members after discussion, which includes China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Kazakhstan.

The total number of prospective founding members has increased to 28.

South Korea and Turkey have also announced their applications to join the bank following Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

The deadline of application to join the bank is March 31 and the final number of founding members will be confirmed on April 15, after the opinions of all the founding members were drawn and discussed.

The AIIB is expected to be established by the end of this year, with a mission to support infrastructure projects in Asian counties.

The IMF, World Bank and other leading global lenders have all welcomed collaboration with the new bank to fill in Asia's infrastructure gap.

For more on the AIIB issue, CRI's Luo Yu spoke with Jim O'Neill, former chief economist of Goldman Sachs.