ANKARA
Russia, Norway and Egypt have been admitted as founder members to the Chinese-initiated Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, the Finance Ministry of China has announced.
Russia announced March 30 that it had applied for the membership of the bank, which is expected to start operations at the end of 2015.
China's Finance Ministry said in a statement on its website Tuesday: "With the consent of the existing founding members, Egypt, Norway, Russia officially became founding countries of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank ... on April 14."
It said the number of founding members, who can set the rules for the bank’s activities, had reached 50.
China had previously announced that final list of the bank’s founding members would be determined by April 15.
More than 55 countries have applied for membership of the bank to date and 50 have been approved as founding members.
Greater voice
China has pledged to provide $50 billion in initial capital and its founders hope that more countries will join and help to increase its capital to $100 billion.
Turkey, UK, France and Italy are among the founding members, while the U.S. and Japan have not applied for membership.
In October last year, 21 countries including China signed the agreement establishing the bank, which is intended to help fill an estimated $8 trillion gap in Asian development.
China has repeatedly said the bank will fill the gap in Asia from existing financial institutions such as IMF and the World Bank, but China is not represented at a level which it finds coherent with its economic power in any of the international institutes.
China has sought to increase its influence at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, demanding changes that would allow emerging markets a greater voice in decisions.
No changes
China has 4 percent of the voting power at the two institutions while the U.S. has 18 percent.
In the Asian Development Bank, Japan’s vote is twice the size of China’s.
But there have not so far been any changes to the voting structure at either institution.
Governments already admitted for the bank's founding membership include Austria, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Finland, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
