ADB says it will maintain standards when cooperating with AIIB

Baku, May 3, AZERTAC The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said that it was ready to work with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) so long as standards were met, while also announcing changes to boost its own lending capacity by billions of dollars. Addressing a media conference at the start of the multilateral lender's annual meeting of its board of governors in Azerbaijan, ADB President Takehiko Nakao said the bank wanted to cooperate with AIIB, provided criteria were met. "ADB is happy to cooperate, including co-financing, with the AIIB," Nakao said in Baku. "With the AIIB, if we co-finance, we will study how we do things, but I don't have any intention to lower our standards." The four-day meeting comes amid much discussion of the future of global development architecture as more countries, including most shareholders of the ADB, commit to becoming founding members of the AIIB. On Friday, Nakao held an hour-long meeting with Liqun Jin, the secretary general of the AIIB's interim secretariat. The pair agreed to work together in Asia, including jointly financing infrastructure projects and sharing information.