Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has updated revelation he made in his 2019 Budget statement about Government’s move to establish a new development bank for the country.
According to his latest commentary on that outlook, the National Development Bank (NDB) could come on stream by January 2020.
The Finance Minister reveals that a technical committee appointed to explore the feasibility of the establishment of such a bank has completed its work and made very forward-looking recommendations.
Among others, the committee proposed that the new bank should be established as a wholly new entity independent of any other bank, including an optional merger between the National Investment Bank (NIB) and the Agriculture Development Bank (ADB).
Extolling the prospects of the new bank, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, said it would be modelled after Germany’s KFW.
“If you look at like the KFW example in Germany, you will get a sense of where we are, going; finding ways to make sure that we bridge the gap between our savings and investment needs and what structures we put in place to cascade in private sector money which is usually situated outside.
“And so that’s the type of vehicles that we should crave, and then such vehicles can then be put on the market later anyway, but given the plan we have and the need to bring in appropriate capital, we think this is the way to go,” Mr. Ofori-Atta said.
In his presentation of the 2019 Budget, the Finance Minister had announced government’s progress in moves towards establishing a new development bank that would focus on industry and agriculture.