Banking on sustainability to spur growth

Editor’s note: Mr Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr, vice-president of the New Development Bank, shares his views with China Daily’s Wu Zheyu on how BRICS can deepen cooperation and the bank’s role in promoting it. Excerpts follow:

To what extent have the five member states fulfilled the commitments they made at previous summits, and how can they deepen their partnerships?

The five BRICS countries have met regularly at leaders’ level since 2009, and they have come a long way since then. They’ve contributed greatly, not only in their own cooperation, but also for the whole world. They’ve been recognized as major voices in all international debates concerning important global issues. In recent years, BRICS cooperation moved to a new level with the creation of the New Development Bank and the BRICS monetary fund, i.e. the contingent reserve arrangement. These are the two concrete arrangements that stand out and show how five important emerging countries can work together.

China will host the 9th BRICS Summit, themed “Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future”. What achievements do you expect the summit to make?

This year’s summit will be another milestone for BRICS. China is the largest economy among the BRICS countries and this year hosts the summit. China, by itself, would have a strong voice and influence, and with the other four countries, together as a group, they have an even greater voice on major issues.

How do you define the role of the New Development Bank? And what characteristics make it different from other multilateral development banks?

The NDB is new not only by the fact of its recent establishment but also for its intention to innovate, to adopt practices that will be more effective than existing ones. On the one hand, we want to learn from the existing older banks, their experience and we are also partnering with them. On the other hand, we need to explore new practices, such as a focus on green development and lending in national currencies of member countries. Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr

What do you look for most when considering projects? Is there any particular sector you will focus on?

The general strategy of the Bank for the next five years has been recently approved by Board of Governors and the focus will be on sustainable infrastructure development, in areas such as renewable energy, like wind and solar, waste and water management, energy efficiency and clean transportation.

How do you plan to scale up the funding strategy both in the short and long term?

The bank, of course, has the funding from the capital base from member countries. Multilateral development banks leverage their capital by seeking funds in the markets. We already started the process last year, we issued our first bond, a green bond in RMB. We also plan to further issue bonds in national currencies of member countries.

The NDB issued its first green bonds in China last year. Does it have any plans to issue bonds in local currencies in other member states such as India and Russia? And does it plan to get a credit rating from Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s or Fitch in order to issue bonds in US dollars?

There are two features that are important in our funding strategy, as approved by Board of Governors. First, we’re trying as much as possible to focus on issuing green bonds, or other green finance-related instruments. So we intend to be green not only on our lending side, but also on our funding side. Second, we want to offer loans in national currencies to avoid foreign exchange risks for borrowers in our long term infrastructure projects. This means we need to issue bonds in national currencies of the BRICS. Why did we issue our first national currency bond in China? Because China has the largest and deepest market, so a place to start issuing bonds in a national currency is naturally China. We’re exploring issuing bonds in other member countries.

On the issue of our credit rating, we’re already in the process of engaging with major agencies, and the intention is to obtain an international credit rating perhaps by the end of the year. This will allow us to issue bonds in dollars and other hard currencies in the international markets.