On October 16, 2012, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan and visiting Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President Luis Alberto Moreno signed in Beijing the Memorandum of Understanding on establishing a China Co-financing Fund, to further promote the collaboration between China and the IDB and support the economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Established in 1959, the 48-member IDB Group is headquartered in Washington D.C. As the most time-honored and largest regional inter-governmental development financial institution, the IDB has a mandate to promote the economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean. China became a member of the IDB on January 12, 2009.