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
 

Events

ORF-CUTS Seminar
BRICS Trade, Investment and Finance Cooperation

New Delhi, July 17, 2012
Programme