Harare – The New Development Bank, President Kundapur Kamath told reporters on Monday that the institution won’t extent loans to Zimbabwe because it is not a member nation.
He said this at the just ended 4th Annual Meeting of the NDB Board of Governors (BoG) held in Cape Town, South Africa.
The New Development Bank, which was officially launched at the BRICS Summit in Russia in 2015, is a multilateral development bank established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in accordance with the agreement on New Development Bank signed on 15 July 2014 in Fortaleza, Brazil.
The pronouncement comes soon after Subhash Chandra Garg, finance secretary of India said it is time for the BRICS group of countries to expand its membership, and Zimbabwe may benefit from the gesture.
This, said Garg, is because it is time for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group of countries to focus on playing a greater role in the world's development.
South Africa which hosted the NDB annual meeting for the first time is immensely benefiting from BRICS with the approval of around $790 million of loans for three projects, with over half that amount going to power company Eskom which is battling for survival after a decade of steep financial decline during which its costs soared and electricity sales stagnated.
Kamath added that the Bank plan to end the year with total loan approvals of about $2.3 billion in South Africa and will double its loan approval book from its current 8 billion US dollars to about 16 billion dollars during 2019.
According to Kamath, nearly 80 percent of the bank's lending was now in the transport, clean energy, and water and sanitation sectors, with urban development and environmental protection also forming a major part.
The NDB was established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies and developing countries, complementing the existing efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global growth and development.
According to the NDB’s General Strategy, sustainable infrastructure development is at the core of the Bank’s operational strategy for 2017-2021.
In August 2018, the Bank received AA+ long-term issuer credit ratings from S&P and Fitch. The ratings reflect that NDB will establish itself as a catalyst in reducing the infrastructure deficits faced by its BRICS members.
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