New Development Bank’s Africa Regional Center welcomed by many

JOHANNESBURG, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) — The launch of the Africa Regional Center (ARC) of the New Development Bank (NDB) in Johannesburg on Thursday heralds a new dawn and is a dream come true for most developing countries, particularly in Africa.

This was said by people from different persuasions commenting on the launch. South African Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor hailed the launch as a milestone in the country’s history.

Pandor said the Africa Regional Center of the NDB would facilitate sustainable development.

“This is a milestone in the history of BRICS partnership and it goes on to concretize the commitment to the African agenda,” she said. “The bank will be a catalyst for sustainable development. It will help the continent to defeat poverty, inequality and unemployment.”

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

South Africa’s Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba also welcomed the launch of the bank.

“South African government is excited about the launch. It will enable our state-owned enterprises to address our critical areas of infrastructural development,” he said. “With slow growth, we need infrastructure investment to ignite growth and create employment.”

Cyril Prinsloo, senior researcher at the Economic Diplomacy Program at South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), told Xinhua that the launch is good news to the ears of the African countries who face an infrastructure deficiency.

“Responding to the needs of African countries have always been a key part of South Africa’s objectives within the BRICS, the NDB and its ARC can be seen as a promotion of this agenda, as the ARC will look to address key infrastructure financing and development challenges, not only in South Africa itself, but also other African countries,” Prinsloo said.

According to the World Bank, Africa has an annual infrastructural backlog of 93 billion U.S. dollars.

Prinsloo said the NDB and the ARC should draw on the lessons from other multilateral development banks operating across the continent, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, and look to learn from their experiences.

“We are well aware of the key challenges many developing countries face in engaging with traditional multilateral development banks, especially in terms of lengthy loan approval times, heavy bureaucracy and external conditionalities posed,” he said. “It is the hope that the NDB (and its ARC) will address these shortcomings to facilitate quality infrastructure financing faster. ”

South Africa’s Director-General of the National Treasury Dondo Mogajane has been appointed as the director of the NDB to represent South Africa. This is seen as an effort to cut costs and to boost strategic alignment and collaboration between the government of South Africa and the NDB.

Danisa Baloyi, executive director of the Black Business Council, told Xinhua that he looks forward to the new center to help uplift the country, the region and the developing world.

Baloyi welcomed the fact that the NDB will deal in local currency, which she said is different from other development financial institutions.

The bank’s focus on clean energy, infrastructure, water, sanitation and transport is a welcome development as those are critical areas which South Africa and the region are prioritizing, she added.

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New Development Bank’s Africa Regional Center welcomed by many