Shanghai, March 6 (IANS):The BRICS New Development Bank will issue bonds in South Africa and commercial paper in US dollars in the first half of 2019, the bank's President K.V. Kamath said on Wednesday.

"Most of the work is done and it's basically finalizing the launch," Kamath told Xinhua news agency.

According to him, the new bonds in South Africa will be denominated in the local currency and will be placed at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

The bank had approved 30 projects with combined contract value amounting to $8 billion by the end of 2018 and will approve another 20 to 25 projects involving loans of between $7.5-8 billion this year, Kamath said.

"By the end of 2021, we will do about 100 projects and the total loan amount could be $35-40 billion," he said.

The bank has approved nine projects in China, with loans totalling $2.8 billion so far. It expects to approve another eight to 10 projects in the country this year, with loans likely to top $2 billion.

The BRICS New Development Bank successfully placed 3 billion RMB-denominated bonds (about $448 million) in the China Interbank Bond Market last week.

The bonds were more than 3 times oversubscribed with more than 20 orders from financial institutions from both China and abroad.

The New Development Bank is a multilateral development bank founded in 2014 by BRICS member countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, with the aim to support infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS countries and other emerging economies. It formally opened in Shanghai in 2015.