The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has announced that its board of governors has adopted resolutions approving 13 applicants to join the bank. This is the first time AIIB has welcomed new prospective members to the bank since its inception, and will bring its total approved membership to 70.

The approved applicants include five regional and eight non-regional prospective members. The regional applicants are Afghanistan, Armenia, Fiji, Hong Kong and Timor Leste. The non-regional prospective members are Belgium, Canada, Ethiopia, Hungary, Ireland, Peru, Republic of Sudan, and Venezuela

“The interest in joining AIIB from around the world affirms the rapid progress we have made to establish the bank as an international institution," said AIIB President Jin Liqun. “I am very proud that AIIB now has members from almost every continent, and we anticipate further applications being considered by our board of governors later this year."

The 13 prospective members will officially join AIIB once they complete the required domestic processes and deposit the first installment of capital with the bank. The shares allocated to the new prospective members come from the bank’s existing pool of unallocated shares.

Meanwhile the New Development Bank plans to co-finance Belt and Road infrastructure projects with the AIIB. The NDB was opened in Shanghai in 2015, founded by the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Speaking at the Boao Forum for Asia held in Hainan Province, NDB vice president Leslie Maasdorp said that NDB and AIIB would work closely together to fill the infrastructure gap, including projects that have spillover effects to neighbouring economies – such as the recently approved offshore wind project in Xiamen, Fujian province. The project is designed to have a total capacity of 700MW, making it one of the largest in China.

At present the NDB looks at projects within the five member countries. However, it might expand to include more members in the coming years.

The Asian Development Bank has 67 members, of which 48 are from within Asia-Pacific. The World Bank has 189 member countries.