First block of New Development Bank projects to be formed by April

The first block of projects of the BRICS New Development Bank should be prepared by the end of April, the bank's Vice President, Vladimir Kazbekov, said at the opening ceremony of the BRICS media summit in Beijing, China.

"We have been given a challenging task: to prepare the first block of projects comprising at least one project from each member country by the end of April," Mr Kazbekov said.

He said that Russia and India had submitted their projects and Brazil was expected to follow suit within the next few days.

"We believe that decisions on loan requests from our countries should be made as quickly and efficiently as possible. We want to find new flexible lending instruments, cut the time for considering loan requests and actively use public-private partnership models," the bank's vice president said.

He said that, considering the stability of the Chinese national currency and the size of the Chinese debt market, entering the Chinese market to borrow in renminbi would be one of the first steps to attract funding for the New Development Bank.

According to Mr Kazbekov, the decision to include the renminbi in the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket will greatly reduce currency risks.

The New Development Bank is also considering entering the financial markets of Brazil, Russia, South Africa and India.