CAPE TOWN, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) has won approval from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) to issue a large bond offering with the status of a local issuer.

With this move, the NDB is poised to gain landmark traction in South Africa's financial sector, said NDB Vice President Leslie Maasdorp at the ongoing NDB annual meeting in Cape Town, the first time for the NDB to hold its annual meeting on African soil.

Maasdorp told a news conference that there was keen interest by the local investment community in buying the bond that will be issued later this year.

He stated that the bank will be ready to proceed with the bond listing which "will be given status as a local issuer" early in the second half of this year.

"In South Africa we've applied to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to register a 10-billion-rand (699-million-U.S.-dollar) program and we have received approval," Maasdorp said.

He explained that the NDB had appointed South Africa's Standard Bank as the lead arranger and Absa bank as the co-arranger for the inaugural issuance of the NDB bond.

The direct involvement of the local investment community in buying into the proposed NDB offering was endorsed by South African Minister of Higher Education and Training Naledi Pandor, who told delegates that investment in infrastructure projects is a critical part of the "domestic finance mobilization strategies."

"We cannot expect donor countries to finance initiatives on their own without us trying to get our own domestic resources to complement that," Pandor stated.

In her address to the conference, Pandor lauded the NDB for it critical role in facilitating change.

"South Africa and Africa are poised to enter a period of social and economic transformation, I believe that the NDB and its partners will provide the infrastructure to help overcome the legacy of the past, and enhance quality of life for all our people," Pandor said.

The minister noted that extreme poverty was significantly on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa and that "more needs to be done to insure direct and measurable impact" of the interventions to shift the paradigm.