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BRICS urged to deliver tangible results for the benefit of people:
CUTS
February 07, 2013, Jaipur
“Cooperation among the BRICS group of countries consisting Brazil,
Russia, India, China and South Africa should move from policy
discussions to delivering tangible results for the benefit of people
of these five countries, in areas of innovative technology, in
bilateral investment and trade,” said Rajeev Kher, Additional
Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and
Industry, Government of India.
He was speaking on the occasion of a roundtable meeting organised by
CUTS International for BRICS Ambassadors in New Delhi 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 (BRICS-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, 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 remain poor
countries with some rich people?, and, as against emerging nations,
is it more appropriate to describe us as re-emerging powers?”
Carlos Sergio Sobral Duarte, Ambassador of Brazil made an
informative presentation, highlighting issues such as that BRICS as
a coalition has evolved on economic and financial fundamentals and
now it is also acquiring a political identity. He also highlighted
the commonalities among the BRICS group of countries on their
economic strengths (land, population, regional importance),
challenges in terms of social and economic inclusion, and desire to
make the international economic order more representative.
Deng Xijun, Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister Counsellor, Embassy
of China said “The BRICS countries and other emerging economies are
becoming an important force in the new world order and their
significance cannot be denied.” He also informed, currently BRICS
countries are cooperating in 30 different 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 that
the BRICS as a group has played a leading role in preventing
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 to be held in Durban. He
said, one of the most important issues to be discussed is the
setting-up of BRICS development bank, which should be seen as an
instrument of niche financing aligning with the needs of emerging
economies, rather than an alternate to International Monetary Fund.
The establishment of the BRICS development bank will be a long
process and we must not hasten it as there are several relevant
factors to be considered.
There was discussion on the need for putting institutional
mechanisms in place in various cooperation initiatives. The BRICS
group of countries is in the process of establishing various
institutional mechanisms and this will take some time as it is still
at a ‘toe-holding’ stage. Also, there was discussion on the
relationship between BRICS and the IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa)
initiative.
The meeting also identified the need to have a systematic and
continuous flow of information among the BRICS group of countries,
at governmental as well as non-governmental level. A web site, to be
managed by a Track 2 network, should be developed and its
secretariat should be responsible for preserving the institutional
memory of this on-going cooperation.
The participants agreed that expectations from the BRICS collation
is quite high and institutional mechanisms should help in delivering
measurable results for these countries in areas of trade,
investment, adaptation to climate change challenges, technology
transfer, employment general and social security initiatives, 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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