![The first president of the New Development Bank K. V. Kamath speaks at the 2nd annual meet of the new lender in New Delhi on 1 April 2017 [Image: BRICS Business Council]](https://image-prod.iol.co.za/16x9/1600/The-first-president-of-the-New-Development-Bank-K-V-Kamath-speaks-at-the-2nd-annual-meet-of-the-new-lender-in-New-Delhi-on-1-April-2017-Image-BRICS-Business-Council?source=https://xlibris.public.prod.oc.inl.infomaker.io:8443/opencontent/objects/0d2433a2-e5ca-54b0-acaf-4b447dab3ebb)
INTERNATIONAL - New Development Bank (NDB) president Kundapur Vaman Kamath yesterday welcomed the idea of creating a free trade area within the BRICS group of states.
But at the same time he stressed that the inner-BRICS balance of trade must be made more even before a trade deal takes shape. “It is a good idea. We need to look at where the direction of trade today is flowing.
If you look into inter-BRICS trade it will be mainly from China from other countries, with the balance strongly in favour of one country. We would need to decide how it will be balanced,” Kamath said on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum yesterday.