Africa’s largest economy and BRICS member, South Africa, has expressed the desire to host the planned development bank to be built by the BRICS group of emerging economy.

The BRICS nations, which include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are working on feasibility studies for the creation of a BRICS bank which is expected to help mobilise resources for infrastructural development projects in developing nations.

“I cannot say if South Africa will be chosen as the site of this institution, but I can indicate that South Africa will be prepared to host such a bank,” South Africa’s Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ebrahim Ebrahim said.

“I will discuss South Africa’s readiness with my Indian counterpart,” Ebrahim said while expressing that plans are already under way for his country to host the 5th BRICS Summit in March next year.

Ebrahim said this on Monday while leaving for India with a delegation of senior officials from various ministries including ministers from Departments of Tourism, Transport and Higher Education; all of whom are attending the 12th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) in India this week.

The emerging economies group is planning to leverage on the scheduled gathering in Pretoria next year to discuss the feasibility of the bank while establishing the size, management and who will be part of the proposed bank.

The concept of the BRICS nation was coined in 2003 by Jim O’Neill, to group fast-growing economies with bulging middle classes and promising markets that were likely to overtake the developed nations of the G7 as the best-performing economies by 2040.

South Africa is part of the foundation member of the BRICS nation and it is also  one of the founding member states of IOR-ARC; an association launched in Mauritius in March 1997 to promote the sustained growth and balance development of the region among other functions.