On May 16, 2022, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the OPEC Fund for International Development signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their operations and strategic cooperation to fund global public and private sector projects to promote sustainable, resilient and high-efficiency Standard infrastructure construction.

"We look forward to further strengthening our cooperation with the OPEC Fund and forging deeper partnerships in exploring areas of mutual strategic interest," said AIIB President and Board Chairman Jin Liqun. "This MoU will allow the AIIB and the OPEC Fund to Leverage our respective resources to develop sustainable infrastructure projects more efficiently. It will also enable the AIIB to intensify efforts to free up private capital for our members to finance future infrastructure.”

"We are delighted to take our cooperation with the AIIB to a new level," Abdulhamid Al-Khalifa, director general of the OPEC Fund, said at the signing of the agreement. “This MoU signals our agency’s ambition and readiness to deliver more by combining our experience and resources. The global infrastructure gap is so wide that all players, public and private, All must work together. Multilateral development banks play a particularly important role because our lending is counter-cyclical and can act as a catalyst to mobilize additional investment.”

To date, the AIIB and the OPEC Fund have co-financed five projects worth more than $1 billion in Bangladesh, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The MoU will allow the two agencies to identify co-financing and co-investment opportunities for infrastructure development projects and programmes in sectors such as digital and social infrastructure in the energy, water, transport, health and education sectors. Editor / Xu Shengpeng