Representatives of the financial world in Italy have welcomed the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development’s decision to accept China as a member, while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is to start operations at the end of this year and the Chinese currency renminbi has been included into the International Monetary Fund reserve currency basket.
“It is very positive that a new cooperation line is being opened between multilateral institutions very different one from each other, such as China-initiated AIIB and EBRD which was born after the fall of the Berlin wall in order to help reconstruction,” Claudia Segre, Secretary-General of Assiom Forex, the financial markets association of Italy, told Xinhua in an interview.
“This convergence has a fundamental importance for Europe as cooperation is not conveyed only through multilateral agreements anymore but also through agreements between multilateral institutions,” Segre noted.
In her view, EBRD giving the green light on Monday to China to join 64 other shareholders from advanced and developing nations was also a “message for the United States which so far has raised criticism against China’s initiative to establish AIIB.”
The EBRD oversees development projects in 36 countries. Meanwhile, the “Belt and Road” initiative launched in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping would support logistics networks throughout Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
This means that the two banks could join hands in infrastructure projects that boost trade and finance between Europe and China, Segre explained to Xinhua. The fact that EBRD did not opt for a cooperation agreement with China but for its entry as a shareholder was a “strong sign of trust” in China, she underlined.
The collaboration of multilateral institutions has been welcomed by Italian entrepreneurs as “a guarantee and significant support,” Segre also added. “Thanks to these recent developments, they have started looking beyond the idea of China just as a country of manufacture to also see it as a market for important infrastructure projects which share a common ground,” she said.
Guido Rosa, President of the Technical Committee for the Internationalization of the Italian Banking Association, told Xinhua that “China’s request to join the EBRD represented one more example of progressive integration among big economies which, thanks to globalization, can confront and collaborate also at the institutional level.”
“Capital market and foreign investments are a growing reality in many parts of the world, always in accordance with the agreed rules, as opportunities and contributions to growth,” he highlighted.
The admission to EBRD will be an opportunity for China to diversify its investments abroad and also build closer ties with European countries, “in line with the wider project to open up its economy and find new markets for its capitals,” said Maurizio Mazziero, a financial analyst and founder of Mazziero Research, an independent financial research firm based in Milan.
