Eminent banker K V Kamath was today appointed as head of the $50-billion New Development Bank being set up by the five emerging economies of the BRICS grouping.

Kamath will have a five-year term of the bank, which is likely to be operationalised within one year, Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said.

Kamath is the Chairman of the India’s largest private sector bank ICICI.

Leaders of the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) had last year reached an agreement to establish the New Development Bank, with its headquarters in Shanghai. As per the agreement, India got the right to nominate the first president.

Kamath has been named the first president of the NDB, Mehrishi said.

The BRICS nations account for nearly $16 trillion in GDP and 40 per cent of the world’s population.

The bank will start with an initial paid-in-capital of $50 billion with each BRICS country contributing $10 billion.

After serving at ICICI for more than a decade, Kamath had moved to Asian Development Bank, Manila, in the private sector department in 1988.

His principal work experience at ADB was in various projects in China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and other emerging nations.

Making a strong pitch for speeding up the creation of the BRICS development bank, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said last year that India hopes to ratify the agreement over the financial institution by 2014-end, and 2016 should be set as the target for its inauguration.

Modi had made this remark at an informal meeting with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President President Jacob Zuma on the sidelines of the G20 summit at Brisbane (Australia) in November.

India’s presidency will be followed by Brazil and Russia, who will have a five-year term each under an agreement reached after intense negotiations among the five-country grouping.

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