All of the countries joining China’s alternative to the World Bank - Quartz

Russia, the Netherlands, and Australia announced over the weekend that they will be joining the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), whose membership has become something of a test of diplomatic clout between China and the United States. The development bank is seen as a challenger to existing institutions like the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank.

Unable to increase its voice in the current institutions—China commands just 6.47% of the vote in the Asian Development Bank, 5.17% in the World Bank, and 3.81% in the International Monetary Fund—China is building its own alternative. The bank is intended to make up for the gap in funding the region needs—about $800 billion a year in infrastructure investment, according to the Asian Development Bank. It is expected to launch later this year.

So far, just over 40 countries have joined AIIB, with one day left before the deadline to join as a founding member expires. The United States and only one of its main allies, Japan, remain absent from that list. The US and other critics question whether the Beijing-led institution will uphold international standards of transparency, debt sustainability, and environmental and social protections, or just turn into an arm of Chinese foreign policy. Last week, Japan’s finance minister said, “Unless [China] clarifies these matters, which are not clear at all, Japan remains cautious.”

But as more countries join the bank, the more likely AIIB will have to follow international standards, observers have noted, and the less likely China will be able to use a multilateral institution to wield influence in the region. Here are all the countries that have joined or applied to join the AIIB:

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War by other means - IMF - World Bank are weapons of war, by John Pilger

BRICS creating parallel Monetary Fund disillusioned with IMF and World Bank - expert - The Voice of Russia:

Frustrated by the IMF and World Bank controversial policy, the BRICS nations go on creating the alternative financial supranational institutions for emerging economies. In recent years the IMF has discredited itself, becoming a completely politicized and "odd" structure, which supports interventionist "super state" ambitions of the EU and the US, stresses Patrick L Young, an expert in global financial markets, referring to the ongoing events in Ukraine.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are fed up with the US failure to ratify a four-year-old agreement aimed at reforming the IMF system. Thus the post war consensus on financing bodies appears to be breaking down, writes the expert in his RT Op-Ed ‘BRICS building parallel IMF.’

"The US and Europe have maintained a stranglehold on the IMF/World Bank C-suite not only in the face of a massive eastern renaissance but also with a certain degree of abject hypocrisy given the abysmal financial management of spendthrift US governments for decades let alone the travesty of recent European economic governance," he notes.

According to Patrick Young the IMF is gradually losing its significance as an international financial arbiter. First Dominique Strauss-Kahn and then Christine Lagarde have been entrapped by the "flawed policies of big debt and big government," utterly ruinous for the European economy.

"During recent European bailout negotiations, IMF minutes suggest the political classes managed to ride roughshod over the IMF in order to maintain the flawed (and still crumbling) euro currency at all costs. In that sense, having a weak European with ambitions for higher political office makes a mockery of the idea that the International Monetary Fund is anything more than an overdraft facility to be rigged in favor of perceived western political interests," Patrick L Young explains, adding, "No wonder the rising East is disillusioned."

Complete story at - BRICS creating parallel Monetary Fund disillusioned with IMF and World Bank - expert - The Voice of Russia:

Ukraine crisis shows global governance is in a mess, and the West knows why - Telegraph

The crisis surrounding Ukraine shows that global governance is in a mess, but events there are merely a symptom of something larger.

My visit to Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank set me wondering whether western democracies are much guiltier than we are prepared to admit.

These meetings took place against the surreal background of the US Congress having failed to pass a bill allowing the IMF to reform in the way that was agreed back in 2010 – a strange decision, as the planned changes to the fund were led by the then-US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner.

Those proposals were to increase the IMF’s lending capability as well as to boost the voting share and seats of the major so-called “emerging economic powers” at the expense of others, including Europe.

Without the additional firepower, it makes it more difficult for the fund to intervene in economic crises, including the one engulfing Ukraine.

Complete story at - Ukraine crisis shows global governance is in a mess, and the West knows why - Telegraph

Twin Ukrainian shocks: tumbling hryvnia and sharply higher inflation

There’s a lot of panic in Ukraine now, and not only the prospect of a Russian military invasion. Everyone who buys anything (which is all of us) are alarmed at increasing prices and the decreasing value of the hryvnia, Ukraine’s battered national currency.

The turmoil in the country has pushed the hryvnia to all-time lows, spurring people to buy dollars and euros.

The hryvnia has dropped around 50 percent since the start of the year, before improving slightly to 11.3 against the dollar on April 17.

Ukraine’s financial solvency depends on receiving help from international creditors.

The International Monetary Fund is considering providing a $18 billion package, short of the $27 billion that Ukraine’s government thinks it needs over the next two years.

On April 14, the European Union approved a mid-term loan of $1.38 billion and an additional $848 million in micro-financial aid for Ukraine. The same day the United States agreed to provide a $1 billion loan guarantee. Meanwhile, the World Bank is going to transfer $750 million in May.

Moreover, the National Bank of Ukraine has raised its key interest rate – from 6.5 percent to 9.5 percent in a bid to strengthen the hrvynia. Besides, regulator has banned 14 commercial banks from interbank foreign exchange market for their speculations.

Government’s official forecast for the average rate of the hryvnia in 2013 is 10.5 to the dollar, while inflation expectations are at 12-14 percent. That is already happening, from the price of bus tickets to prices in groceries, pharmacies and restaurants.

People’s hryvnia wages and savings are simply worth less.

Complete story at - Twin Ukrainian shocks: tumbling hryvnia and sharply higher inflation