Last Friday, twenty-one Asian countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as founding members in Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with the representatives of the 20 other countries. The 21 countries are presented as follows: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

The AIIB's authorized capital is $100 billion, and the initial subscribed capital is expected to be around $50 billion, with a 20% paid-in ratio.

Founding members are expected to complete the signing and ratification of the Articles of Agreement (AOA) in 2015, and AIIB will be formally established by the end of 2015.

The United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and other international finance institutions are supporting the creation of the bank.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told delegates after the ceremony:

"In China we have a folk saying. If you would like to get rich, build roads first, and I believe that is a very vivid description of the very importance of infrastructure to economic development."

Xi told the other nations:

"For the AIIB, its operation needs to follow multilateral rules and procedures. We have also to learn from the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank and other existing multilateral development institutions in their good practices."

Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Australia did not join the bank, although there is an open debate in Australia and South Korea on doing so.

According to sources, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had personally pressured Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to keep Australia out of the AIIB.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) have already joined hands to float the Brics Bank. The latter will be headquartered in Shanghai but India will have the presidency for initial five years.