After several years of intense negotiations, BRICS leaders finally established a $100 billion Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) and the New Development Bank (NDB) at the Sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, in July last year. The countries agreed to share the $50 billion initial subscribed capital of the bank, and hence the voting rights, equally.
Analysts believe the launch of the BRICS bank will give member countries the opportunity to fulfill their economic ambitions and will boost infrastructure investments in the emerging economies whose infrastructure development needs cannot be currently met by existing multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and others.
According to Amar Bhattacharya, distinguished economist and Senior Fellow at the Global Economy and Development Program at Brookings Institution, infrastructure remains the major growth constraint in most emerging and poor countries.
“1.4 billion people have no access to electricity, 0.9 billion have no access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion no access to basic sanitation. Annual financing needs in those countries combined are estimated at between $ 1.8 and 2.3 trillion”, he wrote in a paper in 2013.