The Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI) is established to promote capacity building in finance and development among Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies. AFDI’s origin begins with the APEC Finance and Development Program (AFDP), which was initiated by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the APEC Finance Ministers’ Process in 2001. In October 2001, then Chinese President Jiang Zemin inaugurated the AFDP at the 9th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Shanghai. Three years later in 2004, then Chinese President Hu Jintao announced the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center (AFDC) at the 12th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Chile. As an expansion of AFDP, AFDC continued serving as a capacity building platform for APEC member economies. In 2008, at the 16th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Peru, then President Hu reiterated that the Chinese government “will continue supporting AFDC in serving as a capability building platform to carry out more trainings and capacity building activities for the APEC member economies.” Over the years, AFDC has carried out various capacity building trainings, seminars, forums and research on regional financial and development issues of common concern. These activities facilitated knowledge and experience sharing and enhanced mutual understanding among the APEC member economies.
In 2014, the PRC again hosted the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting. To meet the region’s new demand for knowledge cooperation and capacity building in finance and development, China decided to establish AFDI. On October 22, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli announced at the opening ceremony of the 21st APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting that China would upgrade Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center (AFDC) to Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI). Then, the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration - Beijing Agenda for an Integrated, Innovative and Interconnected Asia-Pacific which was issued on November 11 explicitly pointed out that “We welcome the initiative to upgrade the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Center (AFDC) to the Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute (AFDI)”.
Built on the foundation of AFDC, Asia-Pacific Finance and Development Institute not only continues carrying out trainings, research and forums as did AFDC, but also will offer “Master’s Program for Developing Countries” aimed at young and middle-aged finance officials across the Asia-Pacific region in collaboration with Shanghai National Accounting Institute (SNAI), so as to further enrich and deepen capacity building in finance and development in the region.
