The New Development Bank is planning to expand lending by 60 percent next year, aiming to grow to about $4 billion (3.4 billion euros; ￡3 billion) in loans from the $2.5 billion total anticipated this year, a member of the bank's top management team tells China Daily in an exclusive interview.

That growth would come on top of a 60 percent increase in lending this year, if pending projects are approved as expected, according to Zhu Xian, vice-president and chief operations officer of NDB, a multilateral development bank established by the BRICS countries.

Four new projects totaling more than $1 billion are being prepared, in addition to projects approved before the 2017 BRICS Summit in Xiamen in September. If the four are all approved by December, "the bank's total lending in 2017 will exceed $2.5 billion," compared with $1.56 billion last year, Zhu says.

"Our goal is for all loans to be appraised in about six months, from the date of project identification to the date of approval by the board of directors, which is faster than most of the traditional international multilateral financial institutions," says Zhu, who has been a senior executive at World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank.

The NDB's new projects will focus on sustainable infrastructure development, and the range of its financing products is expected to expand from long-term sovereign loans to nonsovereign loans to the private sector, says Zhu, who is responsible for the bank's lending operations.

More innovative tools will also be explored, including more national currency products, which will help to broaden both financing resources and the types of projects offered, he says.

The bank was founded by the BRICS members - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - with the agreement that created the bank taking effect in July 2015.

The bank, based in Shanghai, is the first development institution of potentially global scope set up exclusively by emerging market countries with no participation of advanced economy countries in the initial stage.

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(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/03/2017 page24)