KATHMANDU, June 28 (Xinhua) — Nepal’s Finance Minister Ramsharan Mahat left for China on Sunday morning to sign the constitution of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
“The AIIB will be the new source of capital in the country’s rebuilding,” Mahat told reporters in Kathmandu earlier.
Representatives of 57 perspective countries of the AIIB will sign the constitution of the China-led AIIB in Beijing on Monday which will create a legal framework for the existence of the entity.
The constitution will lay a solid foundation for the establishment and operation of the AIIB in which Nepal is a founding member.
The Prospective members hammered out the constitution in Singapore last month.
A senior official in the Nepal’s Finance Ministry, Madhu Marasini, who heads the International Cooperation Coordination Division, told Xinhua that after signing the document it will be subject to legal and parliamentary ratification in all member countries before it becomes active.
Nepal signed an Memorandum of Understanding in Beijing in November last year to become the founding member of the AIIB.
Nepal will seek funds from the AIIB in reconstruction of physical infrastructures which were severely damaged by the massive April 25 and May 12 earthquakes, Nepal’s Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat had said.
The AIIB is expected to be established by the end of 2015 and economic analysts said that Nepal could be its first customer of the AIIB.
Nepalese economic analysts are of the view that the AIIB’s funds will be significant in the earthquake-stricken Nepal’s rebuilding when the bank comes into operation.