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The BRICS-promoted New Development Bank expects to extend its first set of loans by April 2016, for which it has set the ball rolling on identifying projects and simultaneously put in place internal processes and procedures to get the funding process underway, KV Kamath, the first president of the bank, said here.
“What we want to do is by April next year make our first loans, so we will have to build teams to identify projects, build simultaneously internal processes and procedures, hire people and then get to the funding process,” Kamath said. He indicated that borrowers’ interest will take precedence for the $100-billion bank, as against the normal practice of lenders’ views taking precedence when fund disbursement decisions are made.
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For the first three months, the bank expects to seek assistance from member-countries’ local development banks. “I’ve started the process of consulting with our own development bank partners, in fact I was having meetings just now, to hire one-two-three people from each of the countries,” he said.
“As of now, technically I have a white sheet of paper with only the names of my four vice-presidents. Everybody else has to be hired… Recruitment will be purely merit-based from across our member-countries,” Kamath said.
On whether NDB will bring in new members, Kamath said the immediate focus for the bank is to write its rules and complete other procedures and any decision on expanding the membership would be taken by its board in due course.
Kamath also said he sees other multilateral lending institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) as “partners, not rivals” in working for growth of the developing world.
