On a State visit to Indonesia in October 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the
establishment of a new multilateral bank, focused on the development of infrastructure in Asia. Just
over a year later, after five formal consultation meetings with interested parties, 21 Asian countries
signed a memorandum of understanding supporting the establishment of the bank on 24 October
2014. Nine months after that, following five chief negotiators’ meetings, the articles of agreement
for the bank were signed in Beijing by Finance Ministers or their representatives. Over that time the
number of prospective founding members of the bank had almost tripled to 57