BRICs 5th Summit – Durban, South Africa on March 24-27

The 5th two-day BRICS Summit opens at the Durban International Convention Centre (ICC) on March 26 in Durban, South Africa.

FEATURED EVENTS
March 24, 2013 Pre-and Post-Summit delegate tours
March 25, 2013 Tour of the Port of Durban
March 25, 2013 5:00 am Morning Live media engagement
March 25, 2013 9:00 am KZN Business Hub

The countries will discuss the reforming of its members’ monetary systems and the creation of a joint development bank.

The world’s biggest developing economies will discuss the bank’s starting capital, while Russia proposes each side’s contribution of $10 billion. The countries will also talk about the possible signing of a partnership agreement between the nations’ stock exchanges and creation of a “virtual pool of reserves” to provide financial support in case of necessity.

BRICs is an acronym for the powerful grouping of the world’s leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The first BRIC Summit took place in Yekateringburg, Russia, in 2009. The leaders of four countries, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Brazil), Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Manmohan Singh (India), and Hu Jintao (China) formally declared the membership of the BRIC economic bloc. The summit’s focus was on ways of improving the global economic situation, reforming financial institutions, and co-operation of the BRIC members in the future.

South Africa joined the bloc in 2010, resulting in BRICS – with the “S” standing for South Africa – to reflect the group’s expanded membership.

The BRICS mechanism aims to achieve peace, security, development and cooperation. It also seeks to contribute significantly to the development of humanity and establish a more equitable and fair world.

As of 2013, the five BRICS countries represent almost 3 billion people, with a combined nominal GDP of US$14.9 trillion, and an estimated US$4 trillion in combined foreign reserves. Presently, India holds the chair of the BRICS group.

The President of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, also expressed the willingness to join BRICS association. He said that the country plans to join fast-growing economies and praised BRICS’ efforts to boost its members’ growth saying that the organization complements the IMF, the World Bank and other financial institutions.

BRICS Durban Summit: Russia’s agenda

Russia has presented its concept for the fifth BRICS Summit in South Africa’s Durban due on March 26-27. Moscow wants the BRICS group of major emerging economies to become a new Euro-Atlantic center of influence, thus, the summit will focus on reforming its members’ monetary systems.

“We invite our partners to gradually transform BRICS from a dialogue forum that coordinates approaches to a limited number of issues into a full-scale strategic cooperation mechanism that will allow us to look for solutions to key issues of global politics together,” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told ITAR TASS news agency ahead of the summit.

Russia’s major BRICS priority is the creation of a joint development bank. This project is appealing in terms of potential investments as well as chances to present a new economic outlook, says Viktoria Panova from BRICS Think-Tank Council.

“Russia has a great interest in the project. The Durban Summit is expected to announce the creation of a development bank which is to become a center for collecting and analyzing data about today’s economic situation. The bank’s reports would be an alternative to the World Bank or IMF studies”.

Experts assess the establishment of the bank as very probable, especially given the fact that the summit is held in South Africa that is very positive about Russia, says Viktoria Panova.

“Russian views and opinions matter for South Africa so Russia has all chances to influence the agenda and push its multilateral initiatives, thus strengthening cooperation at all levels”.

Russia has a large say in BRICS and the country hosted its first summit in Yekaterinburg in 2009. Russia is the group’s major idea-generator, says vice-president of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce Georgy Petrov.

“BRICS sounds like bricks, that is construction stones, and Russia was one of the cornerstones in this structure which is not surprising amid Russia’s growing global role. It’s the only BRICS member which is part of G8. Russia has its stance on every global issue so I think that the Russian delegation will be a uniting and driving force of the Durban summit”.

The Summit runs ahead of the G20 forum that will be held in St. Petersburg under Russia’s presidency so it’s high time to exchange opinions on G20 agenda.

Russia suggests strengthening influence of BRICS

Russia suggests strengthening the influence of BRICS that embraces Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The initiative has been formulated in a report prepared by Russian experts for the two-day BRIC Summit that will start in Durban on the 26th of March.

Experts insist on the need to setting up a permanent secretariat, originally virtual and then a full-pledged one.

Last year, India suggested creating a new development bank. The authors of the report proposed to set up the headquarters of the bank with an authorized capital of $50 billion in Moscow. Last spring, the partners of the BRICS summit in New Delhi decided to trade in local currencies and replace the United States dollar as the main unit of trade between them.

In view of this, Russian experts propose to create a bank for international settlements to assure safety to the economies of BRICS member countries from sharp fluctuations of the exchange rate of the dollar and the so-called “currency-wars.” Russian experts have also proposed to set up an anti-crisis fund of $240 billion amidst the second wave of the global financial crisis.

The Russian initiatives are aimed at strengthening integration, says expert at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Andrei Volodin. The reason here is that at present, economic integration between BRICS member countries is clearly insufficient.
Russian experts in economic integration suggest supplementing it by the joint work in security area. Among these are fighting against the spread of weapons of mass destruction, cybercrimes, drug trafficking and piracy. It has been proposed to admit an Islamic country, Indonesia or Turkey, to upgrade the organization’s humanitarian and inter-civilizational potential.

The report also pays attention to the contradictions within BRICS. Its authors describe territorial disputes between China and India, competition for raw material resources and differences in the approaches towards climate change as time bombs. Russia can use its prestige to convince its partners to ease strain amongst themselves. Co-chairman of the Council for National Strategy Iosif Diskin agrees with the experts.

“Russia’s partners have displayed keen interest in its active economic and foreign policy position and Russia has a unique possibility of multiplying its economic and political influence,” Iosif Diskin said.

However, no one should forget that the West sees its rival in BRICS. Consequently, it will try not to give an opportunity to strengthen the five countries on the international scene. The report prepared by Russian experts for the government is aimed at hampering such a development. It will be the basis of the drafting Russia’s national strategy in the framework of BRICS.

BRICS an emerging bloc

BRICS is an influential dialogue forum of five giant emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. At a summit to be held in Durban next Tuesday and Wednesday, it will look into possibilities to reshape itself into a powerful global bloc.

Professor Yevgeny Astakhov of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations sits on a Russian research panel on BRICS:

“The older cooperation forums, including the G7, the G8 and the G20, appear to be unable to find solutions to pressing problems as the Eurozone is headed for a break-up into ‘a south’ and ‘a north’. So should the US be allowed to monopolize the hard currency printing press? I believe it shouldn’t. I hope Putin will propose to use national currencies in trade within BRICS.”

As a BRICS member, Russia is after new trade ties and a stronger foreign policy clout. China seeks a pedestal from which to wrest global leadership from the United States. India and Brazil, Professor Astakhov says, hope their BRICS partners can help them win permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

We also have a few words from Dr Leonid Gusev of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He was speaking to The Voice of Russia:

“Formalizing a structure for the BRICS group is a serious challenge. The problem is that most of its members are also members of other international organizations. Russia, China and India, for instance, are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I have doubts about the wisdom of putting together yet another regional or global bloc. Only time will show whether it makes sense.”

At their Durban Summit, the BRICS leaders will try to establish or at least bring forward a joint business council, a joint development bank, a joint currency reserve, a joint research forum and a common network of think tanks.

Accordingly, there will be a joint online conferencing system employing a net of transcontinental and transoceanic optic cables.

ABOUT BRICs SUMMIT