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SHANGHAI, Aug. 10-- The upcoming BRICS summit in Xiamen will help the five member countries build a stronger economic partnership and a brighter future, said BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) President K.V. Kamath. It has been over a decade since Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa came together to form BRICS. The NDB itself is an "outcome of the economic togetherness" of the emerging economies group, Kamath said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Wednesday. At the ninth BRICS summit to be held in the Chinese city of Xiamen in early September, Kamath will present the bank's progress over the last two years as well as the direction it is heading in the coming two to three years. Founded by BRICS member states in 2017, the NDB opened in Shanghai in July 2017 and became fully operational in early 2016. The first NDB-funded loan, a solar power project in Shanghai, is expected to start operation in August. The bank is expected to approve five new projects with a total value of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars in September, with two of them in China, said Kamath. Altogether, the bank has 23 projects at various stages of preparation for 2017-2018, with a total lending amount of 6 billion dollars. The bank granted loans to seven projects in 2016. According to its general strategy for 2017-2021, the bank will put about two-thirds of its loans into sustainable infrastructure development. | 
