Photo of BRICS leaders courtesy of Alan Santos/PR under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
At the opening ceremony of the New Development Bank’s (NDB) eighth annual meeting in Shanghai Tuesday, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov extolled the potential of the new BRICS bank.
The Russian minister noted the NDB will strengthen economic ties and offer additional economic infrastructure throughout the bloc as it boosts the quality of life in member states.
Siluanov said, “The task of the BRICS is to unite, not to divide. Therefore, when the BRICS countries decided to create the NDB, we pursued one simple goal: to create a financial institution for developing countries, so that we all have an additional tool to support our joint development agenda.”
Siluanov went on to note the bank should aid member states in developing technology transfers, developing innovations, solving energy and food insecurity issues, creating sustainable infrastructure, and generating development potential.
He stressed the NDB must remain open to accepting new members, and cooperating internationally with global organizations.
Established in 2014 by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and based in Shanghai, the bank opened for business in 2015. Subsequently it admitted Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt. Presently Uruguay is in the process of joining, while Saudi Arabia has begun talks about applying for membership.
According to the bank’s website, it has loaned $33 billion to over 9 projects in all five of its founding member’s nations.
On Tuesday, NDB president and prior president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff said the bank is looking to forge stronger working relationships with other multilateral and national banks. It is also seeking to finance its projects in local currencies more often so borrowers are not as subject to fluctuations in currency valuations.
In an effort to finance sustainable development projects, the bank announced on Monday that it had issued 8.5 billion yuan in panda bonds ($1.23 billion) in China’s interbank bond market.
