President Kagame met Jin Liqun, President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Annual Meetings 2024 in Nairobi (Kenya).
“Their discussions explored opportunities for further collaboration between Rwanda and AIIB, in key sectors including energy and infrastructure”, according to the Rwandan State House.
The Board of AIIB on June 24th, 2021 approved a financing worth US$ 100 million to reinforce and expand the Government’s COVID Economic Recovery Plan, specifically its component of the Economic Recovery Fund established in 2020 to support the most affected private sector by COVID-19. This was the first financing received by Rwanda from AIIB and the first project financed by AIIB in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Rwanda became a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2019 and has so far accessed financing worth US$ 200 million to fund two key projects which include the Economic Recovery Fund and the Rwanda Digital Acceleration Project, which are co-funded by the World Bank.
AIIB began operations in Beijing in January 2016 at China’s initiative as an alternative financing solution to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the IMF. (End)