ICICI Bank's KV Kamath To Be BRICS Bank Chief

KV Kamath, ICICI Bank's non-executive chairman, has been appointed the first head of the $100-billion New Development Bank of the BRICS countries, to be based in China's financial hub, Shanghai. India will hold the presidency of the bank for the first six years, followed by five-year terms each for Brazil and Russia, under an agreement reached after intense negotiations among the five countries in the BRICS group - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - last year. Mr Kamath, 67, is one of India's most well-known bankers. He retired as Managing Director and CEO of ICICI bank in April 2009, and took up his current position as non-executive chairman. Mr Kamat, a mechanical engineer who holds an Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad degree, also worked at the Asian Development Bank and spent several years in South-East Asia. He was honoured with a Padma Bhushan in 2008. The name of the BRICS bank - the New Development Bank - was suggested by Prime Minster Narendra Modi at a meeting of member countries in Fortaleza, Brazil in November 2014. He called the agreement to set up the BRICS's bank a significant step and said an open international trading regime is critical for global economic growth. The bank aims at funding infrastructure projects in developing nations and is seen as a step towards reshaping the Western-dominated international financial system. It will have a $100-billion Currency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) which will help countries to deal with short-term liquidity pressures. Member countries bargained hard to settle the location and shareholding of the bank. It will begin with a subscribed capital of $50 billion divided equally between its five founders; China, the world's number 2 economy, had argued that the economic strength of a member nation should be the criteria for contribution to the bank - a higher contribution would automatically mean greater control. In hard negotiations that delayed the bank for two years, India and Brazil fought China's attempts to get a bigger share in the lender than the others.

ICICI Bank's KV Kamath To Be BRICS Bank Chief

NDTV Profit

NDTV Profit

Follow Us

DISCOVER US FASTER

DOWNLOAD THE APP