Urjit Patel: Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel has recently been appointed as a vice-president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a Beijing-based multilateral development bank.

Key Points:

• Patel, 58, will succeed outgoing Vice President D J Pandian, who is in charge of sovereign and non-sovereign lending of the AIIB in South Asia, the Pacific Islands and South-East Asia.
• He told Prasar Bharati Special Correspondent in Beijing that he will be joining on 1st February.
• He will be one of the five Vice Presidents of the AIIB with a three-year tenure.
• An economist with great repute, Patel will take over as vice-president at a time when AIIB is expanding its footprint in developing countries especially India where Infrastructure is seen as a key driver for growth.
• AIIB is currently headed by China’s Jin Liqun, who is a former Chinese vice minister for finance.

About Urjit Patel:

• Urjit Patel is currently the chairman of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
• He had taken over as the 24th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) succeeding Raghuram Rajan in September 2016.
• He was with RBI till December 2018.

About D J Pandian: 

Mr. Pandian is a former Gujarat chief secretary who has been AIIB’s vice-president since 2016, the year the bank was set up with India as its second largest shareholder after China.

Mr. Pandian was also the bank’s first chief investment officer.