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M. Continuo

ADB will ensure safeguards are upheld in cooperation with AIIB


    BAKU (Reuters) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will ensure that safeguards are upheld in future cooperation with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), ADB President Takehiko Nakao told a media conference on Saturday.

    "ADB is happy to cooperate, including co-financing, with the AIIB," Nakao said at the start of the multilateral lender's annual meeting of its board of governors in Baku, Azerbaijan.

    "With the AIIB, if we co-finance, we will study how we do things but I don't have any intention to lower our standards," he said.

    The four-day meeting comes amid much discussion of the future of global development architecture as more countries, including most shareholders of the ADB, commit to becoming founding members of the AIIB.

    On Friday, Nakao held an hour-long meeting with Liqun Jin, the secretary general of the AIIB's interim secretariat. The pair agreed to work together in Asia, including jointly financing infrastructure projects and sharing information.

    "We shared the importance of safeguard policies about the environmental and social protection," Nakao said.

    (Reporting by Naila Balayeva; Additional reporting by Nicholas Owen in Jakarta and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Paul Tait)