Egypt officially became a new member of the BRICS New Development Bank on March 22, although the application was approved on Feb. 20, but only now communicated.
The five BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) established the New Development Bank as a policy bank to coordinate infrastructure and other development loans at the BRICS annual conference in Fortaleza, Brazil in 2014, with the intention of making it an alternative to the anti-growth World Bank/IMF multilateral agencies. It is legally a multilateral development bank and “The membership shall be open to members of the United Nations, in accordance with the provisions of the Articles of Agreement of the New Development Bank,” but at the outset it was only the five BRICS countries that were members. It has grown slowly, both in members and lending. The United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh became members in 2021; and Uruguay has been admitted by NDB’s Board of Governors and will officially become a member country once they deposit their instrument of accession.
The ascension of Egypt, a nation of 104 million people and one of the leaders in Africa, to the NDB complements Egypt’s growing economic ties with both China and Russia. On March 23, Egypt’s Suez Canal announced that China’s XinXing Ductile Iron Pipes company is investing $2 billion to build an iron and steel company in the Suez Canal Zone. The purpose of the project is to make Egypt a hub for cast iron pipe production, Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported. (https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/492300/Business/Economy/China;s-Xinxing-to-establish-cast-iron,-steel-proj.aspx)
