Thirdly, concluding the Articles of Agreement negotiations in a democratic and efficient way. The Articles of Agreement underpins the fundamental principles for the establishment and future operations of the AIIB. Upon the signing of the MOU last October, negotiations on the Articles of Agreement entered into substantive phase. As the negotiations involved the obligations and interests of various parties, plus the fact that it went in parallel with admitting new Prospective Founding Members, the process was difficult and complex. An open, inclusive, transparent and democratic approach has been adopted and the concerns and aspirations of all the Prospective Founding Members have been taken into account with due respect. In that spirit, Chief Negotiators' Meetings have been co-chaired by China and other Prospective Founding Members who volunteered to host, including India, Kazakhstan and Singapore, and the negotiation process has been accelerated through a multilateral approach acceptable to all founding members. Credit must go to all Prospective Founding Members for their concerted efforts and strong support along the way, making it possible to advance the Articles of Agreement negotiation process efficiently. Within just six months, important consensus was reached covering all key elements of the AIIB, such as its purpose, membership, capital subscription, voting powers, operations, governance structure, and decision-making rules. A high quality Articles of Agreement laid a solid legal basis for the official establishment and early operation of the Bank.

III. The AIIB will adopt international good practices and embrace high standards, striving to build a professional, efficient and clean platform for infrastructure investment.

As the first multilateral development bank proposed by China, the AIIB will actively draw upon the experiences and good practices of the existing multilateral development banks. It will adopt international norms and good practices, and embrace high standards in governance structure, operations, human resources, and management, among other aspects, to ensure the Bank will operate in a professional, efficient, transparent and clean manner.

On governance structure. The AIIB will adopt a modern governance structure which comprises three levels: the Board of Governors, the Board of Directors, and the Management. The Board of Governors is the highest decision making body of the Bank, and is vested by the Articles of Agreement to delegate authority to the Board of Directors as necessary. The Board of Directors will be non-resident initially and convene regularly to discuss major policy and operational issues. Effective oversight mechanism will be instituted to hold the Management responsible and accountable. The Bank would show zero tolerance towards corruption and fraud, and enforce rigorous policies and regulations to uphold integrity.

On operational policies. The Bank will respect and learn from the good practices and experiences of the existing multilateral development banks in terms of environment and social framework, procurement policy, project management, and debt sustainability assessment, with a view to putting into place strict and credible operational policies of the highest standards. Moreover, the AIIB will draw lessons from the "dos and don'ts" of the existing multilateral development banks, and explore better ways and practices to improve its operating efficiency and reduce costs.

On human resources management. China and other members will work in concert and provide guidance to the Secretariat through the Chief Negotiators' Meeting mechanism on matters of human resource management and staff recruitment, through formulating policies, procedures and criteria, so as to tap the global talent pool for management and staff positions through open, transparent and merit-based multilateral processes.