BRICS leaders consider a bank for poor nations
Source: Agencies |
March 30, 2012, Friday
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Print Edition
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The leaders of five of the world's fast-rising powers yesterday agreed to move toward creating a new development bank that would improve access to capital for poor nations.
Accusing current international institutions of failing to lift up poor countries, the BRICS group - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - asked their finance ministers to investigate setting up a development bank like the World Bank or Asian Development Bank. They also agreed to boost business and trade in their own local currencies.
"Institutions of global political and economic governance created more than six decades ago have not kept pace with the changing world," India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the gathering in New Delhi. "Developing countries need access to capital."
The five countries represent 45 percent of the world's population, a quarter of its land mass and a quarter of its economy at US$13.5 trillion.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, underscoring the importance of the emerging world's biggest economies with his own trip to India, welcomed the idea of a new development bank.
"We will be looking forward to working with it to see how we can leverage one another's strength," he said while traveling in the eastern state of Orissa, according to the Press Trust of India.
South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said the bank could "help us create good jobs."
The countries will look at the proposal again during next year's summit in South Africa.
Their arguments for more inclusive finance policies might be making an impact.
President Barack Obama's nominee for the next World Bank president, American physician Jim Yong Kim, said the bank needs to be "more inclusive" and receptive to hearing poor countries' ideas for solving their own problems.
The five nations suggested in a closing statement that they might back Kim's competition from Nigeria and Colombia, and said the new leader "must commit to transform the bank into a multilateral institution that truly reflects the vision of all its members."
On the International Monetary Fund, which is largely involved in bailing countries out of crisis, they voiced concern about slow reforms and called on the fund to make its surveillance framework "more integrated and even-handed."
To bolster business, they agreed to do deals in their local currencies - a move that would help insulate them from US dollar fluctuations while helping lift trade between them from 2011's US$230 billion to US$500 billion by 2015.
Easing visa restrictions is also a priority, Singh said, as is helping one another develop renewable energies and secure supplies of food, water and energy.
The leaders hit out at rich nations for distorting trade and jeopardizing food security through agricultural subsidies, with a statement from the five's trade ministers saying they "emphasized the need to resist protectionist tendencies."
Accusing current international institutions of failing to lift up poor countries, the BRICS group - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - asked their finance ministers to investigate setting up a development bank like the World Bank or Asian Development Bank. They also agreed to boost business and trade in their own local currencies.
"Institutions of global political and economic governance created more than six decades ago have not kept pace with the changing world," India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the gathering in New Delhi. "Developing countries need access to capital."
The five countries represent 45 percent of the world's population, a quarter of its land mass and a quarter of its economy at US$13.5 trillion.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, underscoring the importance of the emerging world's biggest economies with his own trip to India, welcomed the idea of a new development bank.
"We will be looking forward to working with it to see how we can leverage one another's strength," he said while traveling in the eastern state of Orissa, according to the Press Trust of India.
South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said the bank could "help us create good jobs."
The countries will look at the proposal again during next year's summit in South Africa.
Their arguments for more inclusive finance policies might be making an impact.
President Barack Obama's nominee for the next World Bank president, American physician Jim Yong Kim, said the bank needs to be "more inclusive" and receptive to hearing poor countries' ideas for solving their own problems.
The five nations suggested in a closing statement that they might back Kim's competition from Nigeria and Colombia, and said the new leader "must commit to transform the bank into a multilateral institution that truly reflects the vision of all its members."
On the International Monetary Fund, which is largely involved in bailing countries out of crisis, they voiced concern about slow reforms and called on the fund to make its surveillance framework "more integrated and even-handed."
To bolster business, they agreed to do deals in their local currencies - a move that would help insulate them from US dollar fluctuations while helping lift trade between them from 2011's US$230 billion to US$500 billion by 2015.
Easing visa restrictions is also a priority, Singh said, as is helping one another develop renewable energies and secure supplies of food, water and energy.
The leaders hit out at rich nations for distorting trade and jeopardizing food security through agricultural subsidies, with a statement from the five's trade ministers saying they "emphasized the need to resist protectionist tendencies."
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