Minister of International Cooperation Dr. Rania Al-Mashat is currently participating in the 8th session of the annual meetings of the New Development Bank (NDB), held at its headquarters in Shanghai, China, from May 30th to 31st.
Her attendance comes in light of the role played by the Ministry to strengthen development cooperation relations with multilateral and bilateral development partners and promote a national development vision that is consistent with the UN SDGs.
The Annual Meetings of the NDB are held under the title “Shaping a New Era for Global Development,” and aim to enhance infrastructure development efforts and implement development projects.
Al-Mashat stressed that the Ministry is committed to strengthening relations with all international institutions as part of the role assigned to it to develop and strengthen economic cooperation relations between Egypt, international and regional countries, and organizations, in addition to managing the economic relations of the country with cooperation organizations, economic institutions, international financial institutions and specialized agencies of the UN.
She further pointed out that Egypt’s accession to the membership of the NDB enhances the efforts made by the Government of Egypt to promote development and achieve integration of efforts with emerging economies and developing countries, to mobilize the necessary resources to finance infrastructure projects and sustainable development.
Moreover, Al-Mashat underlined that Egypt’s accession to the list of bank members is one of the largest emerging economies, reflecting the steps implemented to enhance international cooperation and development financing efforts and to create constructive partnerships with international institutions and multilateral development banks to advance the development process.
NDB, formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, China, had announced Egypt’s membership, joining a list of major emerging countries, namely Brazil, India, China, Russia, and South Africa.
Since its establishment, the NDB has approved financing in more than 90 projects totaling $32 bn in areas like transportation, water supply, clean energy, digital and social infrastructure, and civil construction.
The bank works to support sustainable development and enhance regional cooperation and integration by investing mainly in the field of infrastructure, which includes various sub-sectors in infrastructure such as energy, transportation, water, and communications, in addition to expanding its operations to include the health and social infrastructure sectors and digitization.
It also aims to invest in the mentioned sectors as an aftermath of the negative economic effects resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy, established in 2015 with a capital of $100 billion.
Notably, the BRICS countries, which are the founding members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), agreed to establish the NDB at the 4th “BRICS” summit in New Delhi in 2012, and it was announced at the fifth summit in Durban in 2013 before it was signed. The convention took place in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza in July 2014.
