Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel has been appointed vice-president of the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Mr. Patel will tenure for a three-year term as one of the multilateral development bank’s five vice-presidents, and will take the place of former Gujarat Chief Secretary D.J. Pandian who had been, as Vice-President, leading the AIIB’s investment operations and all sovereign and non-sovereign lending in South and Southeast Asia.

Mr. Patel had resigned as RBI Governor in December 2018. The AIIB has funded 28 projects in India amounting to $6.7 billion.

In an interview Mr. Pandian said-  the bank had “a very strong pipeline of projects” with regard to India and had transitioned away from mostly co-financing projects with the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

It has recently emphasised green projects and supporting public health initiatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, besides infrastructure and the AIIB around $500 million, under the ADB’s Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility (APVAX) initiative.