BRICS urged to deliver tangible benefits
February 07, 2013, New Delhi
“BRICS cooperation should move from policy discussions to delivering
tangible benefits for the people of these five countries, in areas
of sharing technology, increase in bilateral investment and trade
etc,” said Rajeev Kher, Additional Secretary, Department of
Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
He was speaking on the occasion of the roundtable meeting organised
by CUTS International for BRICS Ambassadors in New Delhi yesterday
in the run-up to the BRICS Leaders Summit which will be held in
Durban, South Africa in March 2013.
“Issues of energy security and trade relations can be better
addressed by a multilateral approach which BRICS can provide,” he
added.
Drawing from the Sanya Declaration of the BRICS Leaders Summit held
in China in 2011, five reputed policy research organisations came
together to form the Track 2 initiative called BRICS Trade &
Economic Research Network (TERN) which will work on a range of
issues on south-south cooperation. The five founding members are
Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Brazil; EcoAccord, Russia; CUTS
International, India; Shanghai WTO Affairs Consultation Center,
China; and South African Institute of International Affairs.
Welcoming the participants, Mr Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General,
CUTS International urged the BRICS countries to answer critical
questions like: “Are we, the BRICS group of countries, becoming
relatively rich nations with many poor people, or are we poor
countries with some rich people?”. He added: “As against emerging
nations, is it more appropriate to describe us as re-emerging
powers?”
“Our world is a beautiful place to live in and collectively we have
to make it prettier and secure. Our Common Future lies on us and we
have to act, not just talk. To use a famous Pogo quote: “We have
found the enemy and it is us”, he added.
Carlos Sergio Sobral Duarte, Ambassador of Brazil made an
informative presentation, highlighting several issues: BRICS as a
coalition has evolved on economic and financial fundamentals and now
it is also acquiring a political identity as well. He also
highlighted the commonalities among BRICS “economic strengths (land,
population, regional importance); challenges in terms of social and
economic inclusion; and desire to make the international order more
representative”.
Deng Xijun, Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister Counsellor, Embassy
of China said “The BRICS countries and other emerging economies have
become an important force in the new world order; their significance
cannot be denied.”
He also informed currently BRICS countries are cooperating in thirty
areas, and coordinating positions on important regional and
international issues. This is also due to the common aspirations of
these countries for development and poverty reduction.
Alexey M. Idamkin, Counsellor (Political), Embassy of Russia
presented his view on BRICS from the G20 perspective. He opined the
BRICS have played a leading role in prevention of uncontrolled
proliferation of world economic crisis. The G20 is working to bring
harmony to sometime contradictory objectives of developed and
developing countries.
Mark P. Reynhardt, Counsellor-Political responsible for multilateral
affairs & BRICS, South African High Commission in India gave insight
on the run up to upcoming BRICS summit in Durban. He said one of the
most important issues is the proposed BRICS Development Bank, which
should be seen as an instrument of niche financing for the needs of
emerging economies, rather than an alternate to multilateral
development banks. The establishment of the BRICS Bank will be a
long process and we must not hasten it as there are several relevant
factors to be considered.
“The summit will also address thematic issues of BRICS and Africa
and how south south cooperation can help African countries to
progress”, Reynhardt added.
There were comments and questions raised by various participants
which led to an interesting discussion. Axel Harneit-Sievers,
Country Director, India, Heinrich Boell Foundation, raised the need
for institutional mechanisms in the on-going cooperation. Responding
to which Rajeev Kher mentioned the BRICS are in process of
establishing various institutional mechanisms and this will take
some time as we are in the “toe holding” stage right now.
Pranav Kumar, Director and Head, International Policy and Trade
raised the point about BRICS and its engagement with IBSA. Carlos
Duarte, responded by saying that IBSA is now a 10 year old alliance
of India, Brazil and South Africa, which has different contours than
Russia and China, and some problems which are unique to the three
countries.
Reynhardt added that South Africa is equally committed to IBSA,
whose agenda is different than BRICS and will complement each other.
The roundtable also identified the need to have a systematic and
continuous flow of information from the BRICS coalition. A
website/portal which can be managed by a Track 2 network should be
developed and the network should be responsible for preserving the
institutional memory of this on-going cooperation.
The participants agreed that the expectation from the BRICS
coalition is quite high and the institutional mechanisms should help
in delivering measurable outcomes for these countries in areas of
trade, investment, climate change and poverty reduction among
others.
For more information, please contact:
Bipul Chatterjee, + 91 98292 85921,
bc@cuts.org
Kshitiz Sharma, + 91 98288 89991,
ks@cuts.org
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