Cape Town, South Africa - August 30, 2024

The New Development Bank (NDB) has once again shown its muscle in supporting the development of emerging market economies, as the bank held its ninth annual meeting in Cape Town and granted a multi-million dollar loan to South Africa's state-owned entity Transnet.

Established in 2015 by BRICS countries and headquartered in Shanghai, the NDB is a multilateral development bank aimed at mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging market economies as well as developing countries.

At the end of the opening ceremony of the 9th NDB Annual Meeting, which was held under the theme of "Investing in a Sustainable Future" on Aug 29-31, the NDB signed a 5-billion-rand (about 281.5 million U.S. dollars) loan agreement with Transnet, the South African state logistics company, to "support the modernization and improvement of South Africa's freight rail sector."

"So it's quite significant I think. It relates to the rollout of the recovery plan that we've announced last year in October. We have a capital investment requirement of around 27 billion. So this 5 billion will certainly contribute to the investments as part of our capital investment program," said Andre Pillay, Group Treasurer of Transnet.

"We will be allocating it to assist us across various projects. But I think more specifically, getting this network up to standard so that we can actually move the kind of, and the numbers of commodities that we want to move," said Michelle Phillips, CEO of Transnet.

The funding adds to 5.8 billion U.S. dollars worth of concessional loans advanced to South Africa over the past five years for infrastructure and energy projects.

"It really highlights the strength of the NDB and the real objectives of the NDB is really to crowd in and support those developing countries and developing markets around the world," said Erwin Pon, an economist of the Rand Merchant Bank.

The bank further recommitted to align the global development agenda with the needs of developing countries as it sets out on a new era with new BRICS members including Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

"Most of us, we relied basically on the infrastructure, mostly Western infrastructure, financial infrastructure that was built before that. Now we need to build our own independent infrastructure. We need to be able to invest in our countries independent of the dictatorship of the Western countries," said Ivan Chebeskov, Deputy Finance Minister of the Russian Federation.

SHOTLIST:

Cape Town, South Africa - Aug 30, 2024
1. Sign, theme of 9th NDB Annual Meeting;
2. Various of loan agreement being signed; attendees applauding;
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Andre Pillay, Group Treasurer, Transnet (starting with shot 2/ending with shots 4-6):
"So it's quite significant. I think it relates to the rollout of the recovery plan that we've announced last year in October. We have a capital investment requirement of around 27 billion. So this 5 billion will certainly contribute to the investments as part of our capital investment program.";
4. Sign of 9th NDB Annual Meeting;
5. Signing ceremony in progress;
6. Flag of New Development Bank, national flags of NDB member countries
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Michelle Phillips, CEO, Transnet (starting with shot 6):
"We will be allocating it to assist us across various projects. But I think more specifically, getting this network up to standard so that we can actually move the kind of, and the numbers of commodities that we want to move.";
8. Various of attendees, meeting in progress;
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Erwin Pon, economist, Rand Merchant Bank (starting with shot 8):
"It really highlights the strength of the NDB and the real objectives of the NDB is really to crowd in and support those developing countries and developing markets around the world.";
10. Various of attendees, meeting in progress;
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivan Chebeskov, Deputy Finance Minister, Russian Federation (starting with shot 10/ending with shot 12):
"Most of us, we relied basically on the infrastructure, mostly Western infrastructure, financial infrastructure that was built before that. Now we need to build our own independent infrastructure. We need to be able to invest in our countries independent of the dictates of the Western countries.";
12. Various of attendees, meeting in progress.

[Restrictions: No access Chinese mainland]