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BRICS leaders to decide on Business Council, Development Bank at Durban summit

BRICS countries are planning to announce a road map for the Development Bank at their summit in Durban

MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) – A Business Council of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will be created at the group’s upcoming summit in Durban on March 26-27. The leaders will also discuss the creation of a BRICS Development Bank, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday, March 25.

“The creation of the BRICS Business Council will be announced at the summit. Its main task will be implementation of multilateral investment projects,” Ushakov said.

The Business Council will include entrepreneurs from each participating country. The Russian delegation approved by President Vladimir Putin will be composed of VEB President Vladimir Dmitriyev, Russian Technology President Sergei Chemezov, Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin, Russian Direct Investment Fund Director-General Kirill Dmitriyev, and President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sergei Katyrin, who will head it.

Ushakov expects the summiteers to approve the creation of a BRICS Development Bank. “We hope that the decision will be made. This issue will be discussed,” he added.

The participants in the summit will pay a great deal of attention to ways to improve the international economic situation. “Global economic growth rates do not allow us to speak about steady post-crisis recovery and in this situation much will depend on joint actions of the BRICS states to expand mutual trade and investment ties, advance a common agenda in the Group of Twenty, and at international financial and economic forums and organisations,” the aide said.

“Reforming the IMF and increasing the role of rapidly growing economies in the Fund are pressing issues,” Ushakov said.

BRICS countries are planning to announce a road map for the Development Bank at their summit in Durban.

According to Indian officials, only two issues remain unsettled. The majority of BRICS countries agree that the future bank’s authorised capital should be 50 billon U.S. dollars, while China suggests that this amount should be doubled. It is also prepared to make a bigger contribution than other countries on condition that it will get a bigger say in its decision-making process. However India insists that all partners should have equal votes.

BRICS countries generate more than 27 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (15,400 billion U.S. dollars) and are home to some 2.9 billion people, 40 percent of the planet’s population.

Their combined gold and currency reserves stand at 4,400 billion U.S. dollars. BRICS’s share of direct foreign investments in the world in 2013 has come to 11 percent.

The previous BRICS summits were held in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia; in 2010 in Brasilia, Brazil; in 2011 in Sanya, China; and in 2012 in New Delhi, India.

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