Canara Bank Gets First Loan From BRICS Bank for Renewable Energy

The New Development Bank (NDB) of BRICS countries has handed out $250 million to India’s Canara Bank for renewable energy projects as part of its first set of loans amounting to more than $800 million.

The financial assistance of $811 million has been given to Brazil, China, South Africa and India. Along with Russia, all four countries are founding members of the bank.

The money, to be disbursed in a staggered manner, will be used to support renewable energy projects with a capacity of 2,370 MW in the four countries. These projects will lead to reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 4 million tonnes a year, the NDB said.

The first tranche of $75 million will be given to Canara Bank for “on-lending to projects for generating 500 MW additional renewable energy capacity”. The clean energy generated by the projects in India is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 815,000 tonnes.

NDB president KV Kamath said by disbursing the first loans, the bank has met the timeline drawn up by member countries.

“With this we embark on a journey to provide speedy assistance to projects across developing nations. We are pleased that the projects deal with green and renewable energy and hope they will act as catalysts for development in our member states,” he said.

In an interview to Hindustan Times in August, a month after he assumed the president’s post, Kamath had said the first loans would be disbursed in April and would focus on clean energy.

The projects were presented at the fifth meeting of the board of directors in Washington on the sidelines of meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

A bank in Brazil, a new energy company in China and the largest producer of electricity in South Africa, Eskom, are other recipients of NBD loans.

The five founding NDB members brought in capital of $1 billion as the initial contribution.

Original Article :
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