President signs AIIB membership deal

President Andrzej Duda has signed a bill on the ratification the agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the chancellery of the president informed. Poland's involvement in the bank amounts to $831 million, of which only 20 percent ($166.4 mln) is to be paid in cash in five installments. This will translate into 0.98 percent voting rights. The bank is a new Chinese initiative, designed to be an alternative to international financial institutions dominated by the US, such as the IMF or the World Bank. It will simultaneously act as an engine for infrastructural investments and the economic development of China. Along with 56 other countries, Poland signed a deal on June 29, 2015 declaring that it would participate in the bank's creation. The AIIB's capital is to amount to $100 billion; each individual country's contribution will depend on its GDP and the purchasing power of its currency.