The groups was asked to consider proposals to establish a new Commonwealth financial institution, and to make suggestions concerning the functions, structure and sources of funds for such an institution; also to consider Commonwealth cooperation in export credit financing or refinancing. In approaching this task, we concentrated on the identification of gaps in the range of existing financial services for Commonwealth countries, and the need to ensure that a possible institution would constitute a genuinely additional source of funds and financial services. (paras. 1-5)

At the meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government held in Ottawa in August 1973, the Government of Kenya presented a proposal to establish a Commonwealth development bank and the Heads of Government agreed to refer the proposal “to Commonwealth Finance Ministers for consideration”. The Finance Ministers Meeting at Dar-es-Salaam in September, 1973, considered the Kenyan proposal alongside a proposal by the Government of Jamaica for establishing a Commonwealth finance corporation for providing venture capital, possibly on the basis of modifying and expanding the structure of the existing Commonwealth Development Corporation by converting it into a jointly owned Commonwealth organisation.

In recent years, the main thrust in the creation of new financial institutions has been at the regional and sub-regional levels. If carried too far, this trend could lead to increasing fragmentation into regional blocks. We see a danger, furthermore, that this fragmentation could be translated at the global level into an increasingly rigid division of the world into two camps - developed and developing, donor and recipient, active and passive.

In the preceding section, we have made a case in general terms for a bank that would act primarily as an intermediary on behalf of governments and public enterprises in Commonwealth developing countries, supporting them in their relations with external sources of concessionary and commercial loans. The purpose of this section is to set out some major tasks to which it might address itself, in certain specific fields.

A bank capable of responding to the needs identified in the two preceding sections would have to possess.

We propose the establishment of a Commonwealth Investment Bank.