Criteria being worked out for new NDB membership: Kamath

New Delhi: New Development Bank, funded by the BRICS group of nations including India, has approved the terms and conditions for adding new members and will come out with a final criteria for the same, NDB head K V Kamath said on Saturday.

The terms and conditions for membership have been approved by the board at its meeting today, he said.

"We will now work on the criteria... Clearly, there ought to be countries which fit in aspirations with which the bank was setup. Global South is an important constituent... We will certainly look at the wider set of countries," he told reporters after the meeting.

Asked if any country has evinced interest, he said it is early to talk about the countries which may like to join the board till criteria are announced.

"That is a bit premature because before the board formally approves the process going forward we are not in a position to actually go to that stage in terms of getting countries to show interest," he said.

The next board of governors meeting will be held in Shanghai next year, he said.

Kamath said NDB has invested USD 1.5 billion in as many as seven projects since its inception in July 2015. "For 2017 we plan to do 15 projects for a value of USD 2.5-3 billion. This will be in the area of infra especially sustainable infrastructure."

He said the global economy has started improving and the economies of all our member countries have also started improving including India.

India continues to show good performance, China being stable with 6.5 per cent growth and three other member countries which were facing some challenges seem to be showing positive growth this year.

Asked by when will NDB approve India's request for USD 2 billion in loans, Kamath said: "The pipeline that they have given us is going to be done over the next year and a half. We will also have to allow that all projects will not be ready for consideration. The USD 2 Billion worth of projects, we expect that to be done over two years."

NDB was created with a vision to support and foster infrastructure and sustainable development initiatives in emerging economies.

The Bank will complement the efforts of other existing financial institutions to realise the common goal of global growth.

The founding members of the NDB -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) -- have put in capital of USD 1.5 billion thus far as capital contribution.

NDB is also planning to raise up to 500 million through 'masala bonds' and increase its exposure to infrastructure projects in India to around USD 600-700 million during the year.