NDB outlines plans to expand lending to private sector

The New Development Bank wants loans to the private sector to eventually take up a 30% share of its project portfolio. Xian Zhu, the lender's chief operating officer, said the NDB was targeting an overall 70-30 split between sovereign and non-sovereign loans in its project portfolio, and was seeing strong demand for private sector loans especially in Brazil, South Africa and Russia.

The bank's first non-sovereign project was a $200 million loan to Brazil's Petrobras for an environmental protection scheme and the second a $200 million loan to South Africa's Transnet to reconstruct a port in Durban.