1st Ld-Writethru: China Focus: China welcomes all countries to join AIIB

All countries interested in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are welcomed to join, China's Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin said on Wednesday.

"The AIIB is an open and inclusive multilateral development bank. China welcomes all countries to join and make contributions to the infrastructure improvement in Asia," Shi said, responding to a question on whether China communicated with the United States or Japan during the preparation for AIIB.

"China has been in communication with Australia, the Republic of Korea,the U.S. and Japan. However, China will respect their decision whether or when to join," he said.

"China is willing to strengthen communication with them under bilateral or multilateral economic dialogue mechanisms and cooperate with existing multilateral organizations such as the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB)."

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Switzerland recently applied to join the AIIB, which has 27 prospective founding members.

Shi also dismissed the assumption of China seeking or giving up veto power in the AIIB.

There have been reports China sought to attract major European countries to join the AIIB by offering to forgo the veto power.

"Prospective founding members are deliberating on the AIIB agreement, including its decision-making mechanism and share distribution. As a proposition aimed at mutual benefit and win-win results, the AIIB will be an open, transparent and efficient multilateral organization," he said.

"As the number of AIIB founding members continues to rise, the share awarded to each country will drop accordingly."

Whether the Beijing-headquartered AIIB will set up other regional centers is a matter of future consultation in consideration of the AIIB's business performance, Shi said.

"The AIIB will draw on experience from multilateral development banks such as the WB and ADB, to avoid their mistakes and seek even better standards. This way, the AIIB will turn into a financing platform that's professional and efficient," he added. Endi