BRICs New Development Bank To Begin Operations In July, RIA Novosti Says

BRICS leaders. Photo courtesy of APEC.

The New Development Bank (NDB), or the BRICs bank, is set to begin operations in July, according to a report from Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

“Russia has fulfilled its part of the work required to create the New Development Bank of BRICS. It is assumed that the entire formation process of this new institution will be completed by the group’s summer summit this July in Ufa,” Dmitry Kurochkin, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation said on Wednesday.

“Before the bank can start operating, practically all member states must first ratify the agreement. As for Russia, the State Duma ratified the agreement on the establishment of the New Development Bank this February, and the corresponding law on the ratification of the Agreement on the  New Development Bank was signed by the Russian President on March 9, so we have, in principle, done all that was needed on our part,” said Kurochkin.

Kurochkin also said that India has ratified the agreement on the establishment of the new bank.

“It is expected that, given the ratification processes currently underway in the other three countries, this process should be completed by the middle of this year, that is, just in time for the next BRICs Summit in July,” he added.

The summit of SCO and BRICs is set to take place in Ufa – the capital city of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia – on July 8-10, 2015.

The final agreement on the establishment of the BRICs Bank was signed in June 2014, in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza. The Bank will become a major multilateral development institution with announced capital of $100 billion. It is being created to finance infrastructure projects in the BRICs countries as well as other emerging market countries.

The BRICs grouping of emerging economies — which comprises of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — was established in 2010, when South Africa joined Brazil, Russia, India and China in what was previously known as BRIC. The BRICS economies total around $16 trillion and make up approximately 40 percent of the world’s population.