Ashraf Ghorab, an economic expert and vice-president of the Arab Union for Social Development at the League of Arab States for Economic Development, said that Egypt’s accession as a new member of the New Development Bank (NDB) reflects the confidence of the five BRICS countries, namely China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa, in the strength, resilience, stability, and resilience of the economy.
The Egyptian economy, which is the fastest-growing economy in the world, explained that the Egyptian economy, thanks to the success of the structural economic reform program, was able to achieve positive growth rates despite the negative impact of the major economies of the world as a result of the Corona pandemic.
Ghorab added that the New Development Bank was established from five countries with a capital of $100 billion, and has financed about 80 development projects in the member states with a total of about $30 billion over the past years, as Egypt is the fourth country to join the bank from outside the pool after the UAE, Uruguay, and Bangladesh.
He explained that official statistics confirm that the BRICS group has a population of 42% of the world’s population, aiming to achieve political-economic integration and infrastructure development for the group’s countries. The pool amounted to 17 trillion dollars, according to the statistics of the World Bank for the year 2016, and its total economy now represents 23% of the global economy.
Ghorab explained that the Egyptian economy is the third largest Arab economy, and the second-largest African economy, as Egypt has a leading economy in the Middle East and Africa, explaining that the NDB is a financing platform that provides financing sources for various infrastructure development projects to achieve sustainable development, explaining that accepting countries that gather BRICS for Egypt’s membership in NDB Bank reflects the great confidence in the Egyptian economy and its strength, flexibility and great ability to absorb shocks, withstand crises and achieve high growth rates thanks to the successful economic policy pursued by the government during the past years.
Ghorab pointed out that Egypt’s accession opens the way to further maximizing economic cooperation between Egypt and the BRICS countries by increasing the rate of trade exchange between Egypt and the BRICS countries on the one hand, and increasing investment opportunities for these countries in Egypt on the other hand, as Egypt has great investment opportunities, including the economic zone in the Suez Canal. In southern Egypt and elsewhere, in addition to that, it is considered a kind of economic openness that will achieve positive results by improving the rates of intra-trade between them and opening new markets for the Egyptian product in the gathering countries.
