BRICS Bank Opens To Finance Infrastructure-Building in Developing Countries

On Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) in Shanghai, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said that the bank’s role in the coming years will be to help strengthen the economies of developing nations.

“The NDB is a new member and partner to the global development system. NDB’s support for infrastructure construction will effectively ease the bottleneck that has constrained emerging and developing nations for a long time, and will offer support for their economies’ upgrade and growth,” said Lou, according to the BRICS Post independent online daily.

The inauguration of the NDB was attended by Mayor Yang Xiong of Shanghai, where it will be based, and NDB President K.V. Kamath, among others. Kamath said, “The Bank would look at tapping financial and capital markets in BRICS nations” to “raise local-currency funds, so that in a way we break the challenge and the cost of dealing in hard currencies,” the Indian edition of Business Insider, a major business website, reported.

Lou Jiwei said the BRICS Bank will work closely with the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Kamath made clear that, after a meeting with the AIIB in Beijing, the NDB had decided to set up a “hotline” with the AIIB to discuss issues, and to forge closer ties between “new institutions coming together with a completely different approach,” Livemint portal reported today. At the conclusion of the July 8-9 BRICS Summit in Ufa, Russia, close cooperation between the NDB and the AIIB was announced in the joint communiqué.

In addition, NDB Vice President Vladimir Kazbekov of Russia told TASS today that the NDB will start screening investment projects before this year is over. “Certainly, each country has its portfolio of projects. I think serious screening will start already by the end of the year,” Kazbekov said, Tass reported.