New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank, is expected commence operations and start financing projects by April 2016, said its first President K.V. Kamath at the CII National Council Meeting here on Thursday. The bank would introduce capital market products and would be open for equity infusion.
Mr. Kamath, former Chairman of ICICI Bank and Infosys Ltd., will take over as the head of the multilateral development institution in July at Shanghai in China.
NDB, founded by the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), has now decided to expand its scope of operations to other member nations as well. The word BRICS was not included in the name to allow new partner countries to join the club of emerging economies going forward.
“I hope to work with BRICS and other member-countries over the next few months so as to build project pipelines by April 2016. I am engaged with the government to ensure that there are some Indian projects in the infrastructure space that can be taken up then,” Mr Kamath told members of CII.
He said the bank would be different from other institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. It would have a different mindset and be a lot more flexible in its operations, he added.
“An important aspect will be with regard to the speed of lending. Currency diversification will be kept in mind while funding. There will be no pro-rating for funding and assistance will be provided to founding-countries as well as member-countries,” he said.
Mr Kamath said the NDB would have Vice-Presidents from three other nations. The Charter for the bank had been drawn, and it would be mostly be on the lines of the World Bank, ADB and private multilateral lenders, he said.
