Development bank president welcomes deeper cooperation with China

The president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is looking forward to deepening cooperation with China and Chinese businesses, which he hopes will bear fruit in improved infrastructure for the Asia region.

Sir Suma Chakrabarti told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on the eve of an official visit to Beijing that China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative would be a great boost for the region and for trade.

He said: "The Silk Road (the land-based component of the OBOR) is an important concept for many of our countries of operation. Those countries which are immediately next to China want EBRD to partner with China over Silk Road projects because it is a way of guaranteeing high standards on the projects - environmental and social."

The Silk Road initiative was valuable to central Asian nations as well as to China and Europe, said Chakrabarti.

"The Silk Road will reduce time taken for exports between China and Europe. If we can get the infrastructure moving this will reduce the costs of imports and exports both ways between China and Europe," he said.

Chakrabarti will attend the inauguration of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) on Saturday.

The EBRD's existing shareholders agreed at the end of 2015 that China should become a member of the Bank. In his meetings in Beijing, Sir Suma will discuss future cooperation between the EBRD and China following membership.

Speaking at the London headquarters of the EBRD before his departure for Beijing on Thursday, Chakrabarti welcomed China as the latest nation to join the EBRD.

He said: "To have the second largest economy in the world as a member country is really quite important to us. It allows us also to market ourselves much more strongly in China to Chinese businesses, to get Chinese businesses to come and work with us in our countries of operation."

The EBRD was set up in 1991 to aid infrastructure development in Eastern Europe. Since then it has broadened its area of operations to include central Asia, some Mediterranean and North African nations, the Balkans and Southern Europe.

The time was ripe for the EBRD and China to cooperate on infrastructure development in some of these regions said Chakrabarti, and he used Eastern Europe as an example.

He said: "In recent years because of signs of weakness in the eurozone and so on, those countries in Eastern Europe have been trying to diversify their sources of investment. They have looked at the Gulf, they have looked at Asia, looked at North America and China has started investing much more in Eastern Europe. On top of that there is central Asia, and Turkey and North Africa where China is also investing.

"Eastern Europe is an example of how the world has changed. Ten years ago those countries would have been looking for investors from Western Europe, they are now widening their portfolio and that includes China. It is a big win for our countries of operation to get China on board."

Chakrabarti will be attending the inauguration of the AIIB on Saturday and he believed the new development bank, with headquarters in Beijing, would be a boost to infrastructure development in Asia and as "healthy additional international firepower for the international system".

"The demand for infrastructure in our shared region is great; we cannot fulfil it alone. Nor could we with the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, together we couldn't do all of it. So it is great to have this additional firepower," said Chakrabarti.

He said that he expect the EBRD and AIIB to move towards co-financing projects.

"We have already identified a number of projects where we could co-finance together (on the Silk Road)," said Chakrabarti. Endit