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Promoting regional development bank complementarity: challenges to Asia and lessons from Europe

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Abstract

As the international development finance architecture decentralises, a plethora of regional multilateral development banks (MDBs) emerge. The institutional landscape in Asia is transforming with the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). This paper aims to shed light on the horizontal relationship between the traditional development actor, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the nascent AIIB. Based on the collaborative experiences of the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), this article recommends that ADB and the AIIB should form tri-partite coordination mechanism to promote cooperation, develop complementary portfolios in terms of sectoral exposure and geographical coverage and co-fund projects to catalyse greater inter-agency cooperation. The resulting synergies will stitch the two institutions into an interdependent and coherent development finance structure in Asia and beyond.

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Notes

  1. The EIB also has relatively large investment in India, China and Sri Lanka, while the EBRD does not.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier version of the paper was presented at the 2016 EU Centres Asia Pacific Researcher Workshop, University of Macau, China, on 25 January 2016. The author would like to thank the European Union Centre in Singapore for the Visiting Fellowship that enabled him to attend the workshop and write this paper.

The author also wants to thank Dr. Yeo Lay Hwee, Dr. Pradumna B. Rana, Dr. Lee Chia-yi and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Any shortcomings or errors are solely the author’s own.

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  1. S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Xianbai Ji

  2. European Union Centre in Singapore, 11 Slim Barracks Rise, #06-01 Executive Centre (NTU@one-north), Singapore, 138664, Singapore

    Xianbai Ji

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Correspondence to Xianbai Ji.

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Ji, X. Promoting regional development bank complementarity: challenges to Asia and lessons from Europe. Asia Eur J 15, 261–281 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-016-0465-y

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