Brazil's state development bank BNDES has become a major player in government efforts to pull Latin America's largest economy out of recession.

Here are some facts about the Rio de Janeiro-based bank, which has traditionally been considered Brazil's main provider of long-term financing for large corporations:

* BNDES stands for National Bank for Economic and Social Development, an entity that reports to Brazil's Planning Ministry. Since it was founded in June 1952, the bank has financed large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects and has played a significant role in supporting investments in agriculture, trade and the services industry.

* Its stated mission is to promote sustainable development in Brazil by helping create jobs, make Brazilian companies more competitive and reduce social and regional income inequalities.

* The bank has a massive stock portfolio, the second largest in Brazil after state pension fund Previ. Net income at the bank narrowed 27 percent in 2008 to $2.8 billion.

* Profit from the bank's portfolio, known as Variable Income Portfolio (VIP), doubled in the past two years because of rising dividend payments and as it sold some investments amid a capital market boom in Brazil.

* Currently, BNDES loans account for about 20 percent of Brazil's total bank lending, or the equivalent of 8 percent of gross domestic product. At the start of the crisis, that share was 17 percent of GDP. BNDES lending reached 24 percent of GDP in 2003, when Brazil faced an external financing crisis.

* Between Sept. 2008 and April 2009, BNDES contributed 32 reais to every 100 reais of new loans, according to central bank data. State-controlled commercial banks contributed 48 reais while private-sector banks the remaining 20 reais.

* For BNDES, its most important funding is FAT, a workers' fund composed of compulsory contributions deducted from corporate earnings. This year, the National Treasury pumped about $50 billion into BNDES to ramp up loans and shore up lending in Brazil's $2 trillion economy.

* Cheap sources of funding -- the BNDES will pay 6 percent a year for the Treasury loan -- allows the development lender to charge companies borrowing costs below market interest rates.

* BNDES uses its so-called TJLP long-term lending rate, currently at 6 percent a year, as the benchmark for its loans. Around 70 percent of the bank's loans pay the TJLP plus a spread of 2.5 percentage points, compared with an average of about 30 percent a year by private-sector banks. (Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal, Editing by Todd Benson and Matt Daily)