The Republic has formally applied to become a member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which was set up last year by China to assist development in the region.

The move is designed to strengthen Irish links to Asia, China in particular, and to continue Ireland’s role over the years in providing development aid to other countries.

It is not clear what Ireland’s contribution to the AIIB’s coffers will be but it is expected to be in the tens of millions of euro.

Ireland’s membership of the AIIB has already been informally agreed but Minister for Finance Michael Noonan provided the bank’s president Jin Liqun with the State’s formal letter of application at a meeting in Dublin on Wednesday.

Formal admission

Commenting on the meeting, Mr Noonan said: “President Jin and I discussed Ireland’s increasing connectivity to Asia and Ireland’s burgeoning relationship with China. I look forward to progressing Ireland’s membership of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and it is likely that we will see a major step forward in the formal admission process in the first half of this year.”

The AIIB is a multilateral financial institution founded by China to bring countries together to address infrastructure needs across Asia.

Since coming into operation in 2016, the AIIB has funded nine projects in seven countries. These spanned from transport to energy to urban development.

The majority were funded in co-operation with other development banks such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.