The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will lend between $10 billion and $15 billion annually to finance infrastructure projects in several countries including Egypt in the next five or six years, an official said Tuesday. The Beijing-based bank's financing will focus on infrastructure projects in five main areas; energy, transport, urban and rural development, and logistics, said Joachim von Amsberg, AIIB's Vice President for Policy and Strategy. The bank has now a total of 70 member countries, after 13 countries have recently joined the bank's membership, Amsberg added during a meeting with Egyptian Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr. An AIIB delegation is currently visiting Egypt to discuss potential cooperation in infrastructure projects. Minister Nasr has offered the Asian bank to take part in financing the second phase of waste water projects in villages mostly in need nationwide, in cooperation with the World Bank. AIIB was formally established at the end of 2015 with 57 countries agreeing to be members, 19 of which were Asian. The capital of the bank is $100 billion, equivalent to 2⁄3 of the capital of the Asian Development Bank and about half that of the World Bank. The AIIB's mandate will be to fund projects both inside and outside of Asia.
