Brazil said on Friday that it backed the creation of a development bank by five emerging powers, an issue that will be discussed at their summit in India next week.
The main item on the agenda of the summit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in New Delhi on Thursday “is the proposal to set up a BRICS bank, an international, investment bank of these five countries,” Brazilian Industry and Trade Minister Fernando Pimentel said.
“We have a great deal of interest, we think it is important,” he said, although he said that the proposal, which will be championed by India at the summit, was still at the initial stage.
He said presidents of development banks of the BRICS five were expected to sign “memoranda of understanding to begin the process of establishing this bank.”
Pimentel said the proposed bank did not mean “abandoning multilateral mechanisms,” such as the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank, but was a response to today’s economic necessities.
The World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank “have specific functions which they fulfill well, such as providing financing for low-income countries,” but the current needs go well beyond this, Pimentel said.
“What will be discussed [in New Delhi] is the possibility of setting up a BRICS development bank for infrastructure projects, development, not only in member countries, but also in developing countries,” senior Brazilian foreign ministry official Maria Edileuza Fonteneles Reis said.
The New Delhi summit will be the fourth since the bloc was formed in 2009. South Africa joined in 2010.
The five members now account for about 18 percent of the world’s GDP, 40 percent of its population, 15 percent of global trade and hold 40 percent of global currency reserves.
Pimentel meanwhile also expressed support for the speedy establishment of a bank for South American countries pending approval by the Brazilian Congress.
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