国际英语新闻:Spotlight: From infrastructure investment to pandemic fight, AIIB takes center stage

BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Residents of Kazakhstan's Zhanatas region are glad to see a 100-megawatt wind power plant enter operation, meeting the electricity demands of about one million local households.

The project by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was expected to improve electricity shortages in southern Kazakhstan. Compared to coal-fired power plants of the same capacity, it would save 109,500 tons of standard coal and reduce 289,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.

"Lending to projects in green energy is highly important for the development and diversification of the country's energy system and benefits the Kazakh economy," said Vyacheslav Dodonov, chief researcher at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, in an interview with Xinhua.

The AIIB was formally established in 2015 and has become a promising player in the development and modernization of the global economy.

The AIIB is tasked with promoting the implementation of big infrastructure projects as one of the world's largest financial institutions. It has an incredibly broad representation of over 100 shareholder countries and authorized capital of 100 billion U.S. dollars, said Dodonov.

GLOBAL HEALTHCARE CRISIS

Apart from infrastructure construction, the AIIB plays a significant role in anti-crisis actions, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

In Indonesia, the bank has approved two projects totaling one billion U.S. dollars to provide financial support for the mitigation of COVID-19 and spur economic recovery.

Jin Liqun, president of the AIIB, said at the Global Asset Management Forum on Saturday that the AIIB has adjusted its investment strategy to initiate a COVID-19 special fund of 13 billion U.S. dollars.

The pandemic has once again deepened our confidence that international cooperation is the key to meet global challenges, Jin said.

DEVELOPING MULTILATERAL FINANCING

For many of its members, the AIIB is not only an investment institution but also a multilateral financial platform to power socioeconomic transformation.

Gustavo Girado, a professor at Argentina's National University of Lanus, said the AIIB makes it more convenient to cooperate with China under the Belt and Road Initiative and empowers developing countries, which historically faced difficulty accessing financing in traditional international credit markets.

Egypt-based economic expert Abu Bakr al-Deeb said the AIIB is "an ideal partner since it does not impose any political conditions to finance projects, unlike most of the world's leading lending banks and funds."

Similarly, many experts have noted that the AIIB can help reduce development gaps between different countries by assisting the poor and the weak.