RIO DE JANEIRO, August 29. /TASS/. BRICS countries will discuss the creation of a settlement currency for exports in 2024, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a weekly interview, which was broadcast on his YouTube account.

"We have agreed that our finance ministers will discuss this issue over the coming year to see if we can agree on the creation of an accounting currency for exports by the next meeting," he said. He also added that the creation of such a currency "does not go against the dollar, it is in the interests of Brazil and the real."

Earlier, South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said that a meeting of BRICS finance ministers on wider use of national currencies in mutual trade will be held in October on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), which will be held in Morocco. Godongwana heads the BRICS working group on creating new cooperation mechanisms in the field of financial instruments.

At the last BRICS summit in Johannesburg, the leaders of the BRICS states instructed their finance ministers to study the possibility of creating a single payment system. Their conclusions should be submitted to the upcoming BRICS summit, which will be held in Kazan in 2024 under the chairmanship of Russia.

In 2023, the BRICS summit was held on August 22-24 in Johannesburg under the chairmanship of South Africa. Among the invitees were the leaders of 54 African countries. The summit participants agreed that from January 1, 2024, Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia will join the association. A new list of possible members of the association will be prepared for the next summit.