MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. The leaders of the BRICS member countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to pursue "the necessary WTO reform" to build an open world economy. This is stated in the 14th BRICS Summit Beijing Declaration.

"We reaffirm our support for an open, transparent, inclusive, non-discriminatory and rules-based multilateral trading system, as embodied in the World Trade Organization (WTO)," according to the document published on the Kremlin website on Thursday.

"We will engage constructively to pursue the necessary WTO reform to build an open world economy that supports trade and development, preserve the pre-eminent role of the WTO for setting global trade rules and governance, supporting inclusive development and promoting the rights and interests of its members, including developing members and LDCs (Lesser Developed Countries - TASS)," the declaration says.

BRICS leaders also called upon all WTO members to avoid unilateral and protectionist measures that run counter to the spirit and rules of the WTO. In particular, they emphasized the top priority and urgency of launching the selection process of the Appellate Body members to restore the binding two-tier multilateral dispute settlement mechanism.

"We agree that the Appellate Body crisis should be resolved without further delay and should not be linked with other issues," the document says.

BRICS and IMF

One of the sections of the declaration concerns the work of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"We reaffirm our commitment to maintaining a strong and effective Global Financial Safety Net with a quota-based and adequately resourced IMF at its center," according to the text.

BRICS leaders called for reduction of the IMF’s reliance on temporary resources as well as solving the problem of under-representation of emerging markets and developing countries in the organization.

"We welcome progress on voluntary channeling of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from countries with strong external positions to support countries most in need, as well as the IMF’s decision to establish the Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST). We look forward to early operationalization of the RST," according to the declaration.