KV Kamath named as first President of New Development Bank of BRICS nations

Eminent banker Kundapur Vaman Kamath was appointed as first President New Development Bank (NDB) of BRICS nations.
He will have of five year term after the bank becomes operational within one year.

About Kundapur Vaman Kamath

• Born on 2 December 1947 in Mangalore, Karnataka.
• Kamath is the Chairman of the India’s largest private sector bank, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI). He was ICICI Bank’s managing director and CEO from 1996 to 2009
• Kamath also had served as Chairman of India’s second-largest Indian IT services company, Infosys Limited. He had taken charge from N R Narayana Murthy.
• He also had worked with Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila in its Private Sector department in 1988. In ADB, he had held various projects in Indonesia, India, China, Bangladesh and other emerging nations.
• He was conferred with Padma Bhushan Award in 2008.

About New Development Bank (NDB)

• BRICS group of nations comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in 2014 had inked a pact to set up NDB and emergency reserve fund.
• This agreement was signed during the 6th BRICS Summit being held in Fortaleza, Brazil.
• To begin with, the bank will start operating with $50 billion in initial capital with the five BRICS contributing $10 billion each.
• According to the pact, the capital of the bank will be divided equally among the five participating nations and initially it will focus on infrastructure projects member countries.
• The headquarters of the bank will be located in Shanghai, China and it will have a regional office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
• The chairmanship of the bank will be rotational and its first President will come from India for the first 5 years followed by Brazil and Russia.

Note: BRICS nations comprise 40 per cent of the world’s population and accounts for nearly US $ 16 trillion in GDP.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2015