DHAKA: China’s president Xi Jinping said Saturday that Beijing’s new Asian investment schemes do not aim to displace existing regional programs, after US skepticism about the Beijing-backed AIIB bank.

China is expanding its financial clout in Asia with the founding of a ‘Belt and Road’ scheme to invest in regional transport links, as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multinational lender that the United States perceives as a threat to the Washington-led World Bank.

Xi told a regional summit in southern China that the ‘Belt and Road’ scheme had ‘no intention of replacing existing mechanisms or initiatives for regional cooperation’, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, reports The Straits Times.

‘All countries along the routes in Asia, as well as China’s friends and partners around the world’ are invited to take part in the program as well as the AIIB, Xi added, according to the media reports.

BDST: 1533 HRS, MAR 28, 2015