Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been appointed as India’s representative on the board of governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), it was announced Monday.

The appointment to the Manila-based institution takes retrospective effect from May 27. He replaces his predecessor in the finance ministry P. Chidambaram.

Formed in 1996 as a development finance institution, ADB aims to lift the lives of the 1.7 billion poor and deprived people in Asia and the Pacific regions with wise funding and investment.

The institution today has 67 members. Of them, India is among the 31 founder members.