United States welcomes AIIB

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) holds talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing, capital of China, May 16, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

The United States welcomes new multilateral institutions, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, US Secretary of State John Kerry said during a press conference with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday.

"We respect the AIIB," the top US envoy said. "There is an enormous amount of misunderstanding but let me try to be clear.

"There is a pressing need to enhance infrastructure investment not only in Asia, but as well as around the world," Kerry said. "The United States welcomes new multilateral institutions, including the AIIB, as long as it provides the international community a strong commitment to high standards."

Those standards include genuine multilateral decision-making and environmental and social safeguards, which Kerry said also "applied to global financial institutions".

"We will continue to engage directly with China and other countries in order to provide suggestions on how the AIIB can best adopt and implement these particular standards. With that, we welcome the AIIB and we encourage co-financing some projects with existing institutions, like the World Band and the Asian Development Bank," Kerry said.

About the meeting, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that the most important thing is for he and Kerry to make preparations for President Xi Jinping's state visit in September to the United States.

"Just now, together with Secretary Kerry, we exchanged views concerning the arrangements of events, the agenda items of this visit," Wang said.

Kerry disclosed that both sides also dug into a number of issues in depth, including those in which the two countries have a difference in opinion, such as maritime security.

"There is no question that our nations share extraordinary opportunity as we build the history of this century," Kerry said. "We have a lot to accomplish together in the coming years. As two of the world's major powers and largest economies, we have a profound opportunity to set a constructive course to affect everybody on this planet."