Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday began his five-day China visit by meeting Chinese bankers and wealth fund managers pitching for more investments in India.

 

Soon after his arrival in Beijing , Jaitley met Bank of China Chairman Tian Guoli and addressed a closed Roundtable meeting of heads of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Institutional Investors and Banks. The Finance Minister will tomorrow address Business Forum Invest in India in which several Chinese businessmen and heads of state-run firms were expected to take part. On June 25, Jaitley will attend the Board Governors meeting of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in which India is the second largest investor after China. The Beijing-based AIIB was officially established late last year.

 

The bank has authorised capital of USD 100 billion. China is the largest shareholder with 26.06 per cent voting shares. India is the second largest shareholder with 7.5 per cent followed by Russia 5.93 per cent and Germany 4.5 per cent. In all the 57 countries joined as founding members of the bank which was expected to announce first set of loans in various countries.

 

On Sunday, he would take part in a seminar discussion Infrastructure and Global Economic Growth along with Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, Pierre Egide Gramegna, Minister of Finance, Luxembourg, Imad Najib Fakhoury, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Jordan, Jin Liqun, AIIB President, Chris Heathcote, CEO, Global Infrastructure Hub. The AIIB is also hosting a seminar on Financing Green Infrastructure: The Role of the Multilateral Development Banks in which KV Kamath, President, New Development Bank of the BRICS countries and Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of the State Bank of India are due to participate.

 

Jaitley will meet his counterpart Lou Jiwei on June 27. Officials said India-China financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries which was due to be held on June 27 has been postponed to July.

 

The Postponement has been necessitated because of inability of India's Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das to travel to Beijing for the meeting.

 

Das was asked to stay back in Delhi in view of the voting on Brexit which is taking place today to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or not which will have implications for India. Fresh dates for the financial dialogue at the level of Secretaries in July are being worked out. The two countries have so for had seven rounds of financial dialogue at the level of Finance Secretaries, the last being in New Delhi in 2014.

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