BRICS summit to discuss global economic recovery

March 26, 2013 JRL Russia List Brazil, BRICS, China, Economy, Business, Investment, Trade, India, South Africa

(Interfax – MOSCOW, March 26, 2013) – Proposals for global economic recovery dominate the agenda for a planned summit of BRICS on Tuesday and Wednesday.

President Vladimir Putin will represent Russia at what is the fifth summit of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The meeting will be held in Durban, South Africa.

“The pace of growth of the global economy doesn’t represent confident post-crisis recovery. In this situation, much depends on concerted actions by the BRICS states to boost mutual trade and investment ties, and lobby for the joint agenda within the G20, especially in view of the Russian chairmanship in that forum,” Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov said in a briefing in Moscow.

The summit will also look at a proposal to set up a BRICS development bank. “This matter will be discussed. I hope that a basic decision will be made,” Ushakov said.

The BRICS leaders would pay special attention to developing direct contacts between them, on the one hand, and their countries’ business communities, on the other, and would have a meeting with business figures on the fringes of the summit.

The summit would set up a “Business Council,” a body overseeing multilateral investment projects.

The summit would also take up international political issues such as the crisis in Syria, the Iranian nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “The BRICS countries stand for conflicts to be settled by political and diplomatic means and reject policies of pressure and infringement of the sovereignty of other states,” Ushakov said.

The summit is expected to issue an “eThekwini Declaration” and “eThekwini Plan of Action” – eThekwini is the name of the municipality where the event will be held.

“The declaration will contain an assessment of the current global political and economic situation and reflect the general principles of the BRICS countries on key issues of multilateral cooperation. The plan of action sets concrete tasks for BRICS for the coming year and includes new promising areas of interaction,” Ushakov said.

The summit would result in an agreement to co-finance green and infrastructural projects in African countries and in a declaration on the institution of a BRICS consortium of expert centers.