Brics’ New Development Bank approves six project loans totalling $1.6bn

Multilateral development bank, the New Development Bank (NDB), on Monday held its third yearly meeting of the NDB board of governors (BoG) and the fourteenth meeting of the NDB board of directors (BoD), in Shanghai, China.

The NDB was established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, or Brics.

During the meetings, South African Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene was elected as the new chairperson of the BoG and will serve in this position until the end of the next BoG yearly meeting, which will be held in South Africa, next year.

The BoD, meanwhile, approved six projects from all five NDB members’ countries, with loans of an aggregate $1.6-billion. It was highlighted that in 2018 the bank has significantly strengthened its project portfolio, and the total amount of approvals in 2018 has reached $1.7-billion.

With the six projects approved, the total amount of the NDB portfolio has reached more than $5.1-billion.

One of the six projects approved by the NDB is the Durban Container Terminal berth reconstruction project, in South Africa, which is aimed at helping South African State-owned freight utility Transnet enhance the capacity of its Port of Durban.

The loan amount for this project is $200-million.

Further, the NDB approved the Petrobras environmental protection project, in Brazil. The loan amount for this project is $200-million.

The third approved project is the development of water supply and sanitation systems in Russia for $320-million.

Also in Russia, the $220-million small historic cities development project is aimed at supporting the sustainable socioeconomic development of nine competitively selected historic cities of national significance, through tourism infrastructure development.

Meanwhile, the NDB has approved $350-million for the Bihar rural roads project, in India through the construction and upgrading of 4 000 km of rural roads across 26 districts in India.

Lastly, under the framework of the Chongqing small cities sustainable development project, in China, the NDB will support sustainable infrastructure development in seven small cities in Chongqing municipality. The loan amount for this project is $300-million.