The Rise of BRICS

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Russia, India, China to Forge Common Approach to Global Issues

By Anjana Pasricha
New Delhi
27 October 2009

The foreign ministers of India, China and Russia say they are forging a common approach to global issues such as the financial crisis, climate change and security following talks in India. India and China have also held separate discussions in an effort to narrow recent differences that have emerged between the Asian giants.

In a joint statement, India, China and Russia said Tuesday that the pace of development in all three countries has improved despite the recent financial crisis.

The statement was issued following a meeting between the foreign ministers of the three countries in Bangalore on Tuesday.

The ministers said they will work together to ensure global peace and stability. S.M. Krishna is India's foreign minister.

"We have also agreed that trilateral action against terrorism and transnational crime will provide stability and all round development," Krishna said.

The statement said the three countries took the threat of "global warming" seriously, and will work for a successful outcome to the U.N. emissions conference in Copenhagen later this year. All three countries are among the top polluters in the world.

The three countries say they have found common ground on global issues.

Chinese foreign minister Yang Jeichi said that new threats such as terrorism, climate change and energy security have becoming increasingly pressing.

Yang says China, India and Russia are all major emerging countries, and have the same or similar positions on major international and regional issues.

The Chinese and Indian foreign ministers also held a separate bilateral meeting in a bid to resolve recent irritants that have emerged between the Asian giants.

Indian foreign minister said he was "satisfied" with the talks, which were part of a process of building "trust and understanding" between the two countries.

The meeting came three days after the prime ministers of India and China met in Thailand on the sidelines of a regional summit and said they will work to create more trust at the political level.

Beijing is unhappy with an upcoming visit by the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh of which China claims large parts. China recently also expressed its annoyance at a visit by the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the state. The state lies at the heart of a festering border dispute between the two countries.

Reports of border incursions by China also dominated the Indian media in recent weeks, although both countries have downplayed those reports.

An Indian official said Tuesday's meeting between the foreign ministers was to narrow their differences on political and regional issues.

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SCO and BRIC - The Paradigm Shift

This is how the world is changing....
where do you find yourself in this scenario???

USA is planning to react and they want to keep an eye on Russia, China and INDIA while sitting in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They wish to disrupt the whole process and they are planning to cause war between any two nations of Bric countries in ASIA.

We have to witness yet another world war, may be.

Now it is very much clear that USA must do something to escape this threat. So what are they upto???? They are forming American Alliance comprising of USA, CANADA and Mexico. Their currency would be called AMERO.

An era of new cold war and this time it is going to be worse as it wouldn't bipolar world rather there would be three world powers ie; EU, BRIC and American Union.

There are so many other influential countries like JAPAN, Malaysia, Indonesia and some other Muslim Countries which seem to be out of this race but eventually they will have to join one or the other.

This world is heading to the WORLD GOVERNMENT finally and this is not a conspiracy theory. The picture is getting clearer.

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BRIC – Four Horses of the Apocalypse shifting global power

Posted by NGE on Jan 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment

By Alan Beattie at ft.com



Put a jaguar, a bear, a tiger and a panda together and you might get a good show but you don’t get a quiet life.

The Bric grouping – Brazil, Russia, India and China – has become a shorthand for the rise of emerging markets in the global economy. And after a rather stellar decade, the Brics mainly had a good crisis from which they are now rapidly exiting.

Goldman Sachs, the financial group that invented the category, reckons that China may well become the world’s largest economy before 2030. Collectively, the Bric economies could well surpass output in the Group of Seven wealthy nations – which have dominated the management of the global economy – by 2032.

The Brics already have a bigger share of world trade than the US. China, probably the world’s biggest goods exporter last year, has been supplemented by India’s software and back-office exports, Russia’s oil and gas and the domination of a number of agricultural commodity markets by Brazil’s super-competitive farmers.

While equities in G7 countries were struggling to stay in positive territory during the past five or so years, the Bric share prices, albeit with a steep drop and rapid recovery during the global financial crisis, finished the decade more than twice as high as in 2005. Bric equity indices have emerged; Bric funds have sprung up for investors to pile into the sector.

So as the world emerges from recession, is this a transformational moment when the centre of gravity in the global economy and its governance decisively shifts? Is this a pivot point such as the second world war, where the confident, innovative US muscled aside the weakened, debt-laden economies of Europe and remade the global financial architecture? And, most immediately, are Bric consumers up to the task of rebalancing the world economy by supplanting their acquisitive American counterparts?

The most likely answer is: not yet. Not only are the Brics such a disparate group that almost any generalisation is problematic, but China, the dominant member of the quartet, still seems wedded to an economic model dependent on demand elsewhere.

“The so-called emerging economies, even some like Bangladesh, are undoubtedly players on the global stage,� said Jean-Pierre Lehmann, professor of political economy at the IMD management school in Lausanne, Switzerland. “But I don’t see any great cataclysm in the next 10 years, nor the centre of finance definitively moving east."

Like a boy band or a street gang, the Brics might almost have been chosen for their disparate abilities rather than their similarities. China’s size and openness to trade give it as much economic clout as the rest put together: Markus Jäger, of Deutsche Bank, calls the hypercompetitive manufacturing exporter “the 800lb panda in the room�. India, similar in population but poorer and economically more insular, is chiefly notable to investors and trading partners for its software and business services. Brazil, despite a sprinkling of manufacturers, remains one of the world’s most efficient agro-exporters; Russia, after feebler attempts to diversify, essentially just sells oil and gas.

The story of their rapid progress is familiar but still dramatic. A decade ago, only one had an investment-grade credit rating; now all do. Only 12 years ago, a Russian debt default and Brazilian currency crisis rocked the world economy; today, they have accumulated vast foreign exchange reserves.

The Brics contributed about half of global growth between 2000 and 2008 – sharply higher than in the previous decade. Yet along with this growth has come an unbalancing of the global economy.

A Chinese growth model based on heavy investment and exports has accompanied vast current-account surpluses across east Asia, matched by a current-account deficit in the US. And despite doing its bit to keep economic growth going during the crisis, it is far from clear that the Middle Kingdom has effected a shift towards consumer demand that a true engine of world growth would achieve.

With a great flourish, Beijing announced a $585bn stimulus package in November 2008 and loosened bank credit. But its ability to create self-sustaining growth was suspect. Rather than handing out cash to consumers to get them spending – a move that might also have encouraged imports – a large chunk of the stimulus went into the old favourite, fixed investment. “If global demand does not recover in time or the stimulus measures fail to stir the animal spirits, China may end up creating overcapacity,� said Mr Jäger.

Razeen Sally, a trade expert at the London School of Economics, said: “The Chinese interventions had the effect of reinforcing existing problems and imbalances. We are going to see a lot of excess capacity in export-oriented industries like steel at exactly the wrong time.�

The repegging of the renminbi against the dollar in 2008, after three years when it was allowed to crawl higher, has also done nothing to shift the Chinese economy from exports to consumer demand. The effect of that decision is multiplied by the copycat actions of many emerging-market countries holding their own currencies down lest they lose competitiveness to China.

Indeed, although the worldwide reduction in consumer demand has cut the absolute level of China’s current-account surplus during the crisis, with fewer ships carrying toys and iPods out of Shenzhen and Shanghai, China continued to gain market share abroad. The International Monetary Fund and others reckon that the apparent rebalancing of the global economy over the past year is temporary. When demand picks up, so will Chinese exports, along with the old surpluses and deficits.

Despite pockets of profligacy, if anything, China’s has become less rather than more of a consumer economy in the past decade. Its overall savings rate grew over the decade. Although much of this rise reflected corporate savings, household savings rose, too, and a greater share of national income went to companies rather than consumers in the first place.

A survey last year by the McKinsey Global Institute backed up what many economists have long argued: that the lack of a social safety net is one of the main reasons that Chinese households save. The top three reasons given were: educational needs, security in case of illness and caring for parents. Changing deep-seated structural factors such as this will not be quick. Nor will it be achieved simply by letting the renminbi rise.

As for the other Brics, whose trend growth rate is slower than China’s, they are unlikely to have a noticeable effect on global demand for some time. Although growth in Brazil and India held up well during the crisis, the former is a relatively mature economy with less scope for rapid growth; the latter an underperformer with a chronic public finance problem and a household savings rate even higher than China’s. Meanwhile, Russia, whose economy contracted sharply during the global recession, still depends on oil prices.

A decade of rapid growth is not enough for the Brics to seize the baton of global economic leadership from the US and western Europe. The grouping, or some of them, may have astonished the world with their progress over the past 10 years. But it will require a qualitative improvement as well as more growth to consolidate that shift of power.

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Brazil as an Emerging Power: The View from the United States

by Shannon O’Neil
SAIIA Policy Briefing, No 16, February 2010
Download - English [.pdf]

Emerging Powers and Africa Programme

The United States has always seen Brazil as a significant regional powerhouse, but its perceived importance has risen in the last decade.

Because of its economic strength, its hemispheric leadership and its growing geostrategic role through multilateral international forums, it has become a vital player in regional and global politics across numerous dimensions.

While US recognition of Brazil’s political and economic emergence brought to the fore the question of how Washington should manage relations with Brasilia, translating this new awareness into concrete bilateral policies and partnerships remains difficult.

It is unclear whether the US and Brazil will be willing and able to form a ‘special relationship’.

SAIIA sincerely thanks those who acted as peer reviewers for these papers.

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Published: 2010/03/09 08:31:50 GMT
Brazil puts trade sanctions on US



The Brazilian government has announced trade sanctions against a variety of American goods in retaliation for illegal US subsidies to cotton farmers.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) approved the sanctions in a rare move.

Brazil published a list of 100 US goods that would be subject to import tariffs in 30 days, unless the two governments reached a last-minute accord.

It said it regretted the sanctions, but that eight years of litigation had failed to produce a result.

It said it would raise tariffs on $591m (£393m) worth of US products - from cars, where the tariff will increase from 35% to 50%, to milk powder, which would see a 20% increase in the levy.

“ US farm subsidies are condemned worldwide. This archaic practice must stop �
Carlos Marcio Cozendey Brazil's foreign ministry

Cotton and cotton products would be charged 100% import tariff, the highest on the list.

The Office of the US Trade Representative said it was "disappointed" by Brazil's decision and called for a negotiated settlement.

Critics say the US has given its cotton growers an unfair advantage by paying them billions of dollars each year.

In 2008, the WTO ruled that subsidies to US cotton producers were discriminatory.

Tall order HAVE YOUR SAY Government subsidies for local producers should only be allowed in response to short term need after natural disasters or periods of serious economic hardship Peter Galbavy

Carlos Marcio Cozendey, head of economic affairs at Brazil's foreign ministry, told a news conference: "The idea was to distribute the retaliation broadly in order to maximise pressure.

"US farm subsidies are condemned worldwide. This archaic practice must stop."

However some analysts say major changes to these subsidies would involve modifying agricultural legislation - a tall order for the US Congress against a difficult economic and political backdrop, says the BBC's Gary Duffy in Sao Paulo.

Our correspondent says the dispute, which began in 2002, is one of the few in which the WTO has allowed cross-retaliation, meaning the wronged party can retaliate against a sector not involved in the case.

He adds that it appears the Brazilian government has deliberately chosen a wide range of products in order to have maximum impact.

Safety net

Cotton producers in the US argue that the system of subsidies has changed since the WTO made its original ruling in 2005.

"The US has made changes in the cotton programme as well as the export guarantee programme," Gary Adams, chief economist at the National Cotton Council told the BBC, adding that US cotton production was now 40% to 45% lower.

Mr Adams said he believed that subsidies were still justified.

"We feel this is a very important financial safety net for producers," he said.

Steven Bipes of the Brazil-US Business Council urged the US to take steps to avoid what he called "damaging" retaliation by Brazil.

"The business community finds it extraordinarily important that countries, including the US, comply with its WTO obligations and otherwise negotiate to find common ground when there are disputes," he told the BBC.

© BBC MMX

[Ryan Ruck]

Obama Is Losing India

The Obama administration is trying to play catch-up in its relations with the country that could become its most important long-term ally. But it may be leaving it too late, after India last week agreed a $7 billion deal in arms, nuclear reactors and space technology with Russia.

India's strategic importance can hardly be exaggerated. More than just the other Asian economic giant after China, India is a democracy where English is an official language. It shares with Washington the same love-hate attitude toward China, hopeful but deeply suspicious at the same time. And with a much healthier demographic profile than China, most extrapolations of long-term trend suggest that India's economy will outgrow China's by the second half of this century.

U.S. President Barack Obama himself seems to have understood this. The first state dinner he hosted was for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. And then were strong foundations on which to build. His Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton had started the courtship of India in the 1990s and President George W. Bush's commitment to India was one of the few successes of his troubled foreign policy.

Bush's legacy was a nuclear cooperation agreement, which allowed India to escape the nuclear isolation into which it was plunged after testing a nuclear weapon outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bush's deal also opened the way for the United States to sell nuclear power stations, fuel and other technology to India and to forge a lasting strategic partnership.

But for a host of reasons the Obama administration has let India slip down the list of its priorities. Not all of these reasons relate to Islamic terrorism, the war in Afghanistan and consequent urge to focus on Pakistan.

The economic crisis has emphasized China's importance, as the country with the biggest trade surplus with the United States and as the second leading holder of U.S. securities after Japan. China's diplomatic role, as a member of the U.N. Security Council and thus wielding a veto, has also underlined China's pivotal position in U.S. attempts to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran and north Korea.

India understandably chafes at the sense that it plays second fiddle in Washington, lacking that network of institutional ties and official relationships that cement connections to other leading powers.

"The U.S.-Indian relationship remains constrained," notes Evan Feigenbaum, senior fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia and Central Asia. "Although U.S. officials hold standing dialogues about nearly every region of the world with their counterparts from Beijing, Brussels and Tokyo, no such arrangements exist with New Delhi."

Other states, notably Russia, have not led India slip to the back burner. Last week's visit to New Delhi of Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has seen the signing of a number of strategic deals. They included an aircraft carrier, MiG-29 fighters, defense and space technology and at least 12 civilian nuclear reactors. Putin also said he wanted the current $8 billion in annual trade with India to more than double to $20 billion.

The deal to buy the Soviet aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov has been in the works for years, delayed by the need for an almost complete overhaul of the ship and by haggling over the terms. The initial price tag was $1.5 billion, which Russia increased to $2.5 billion but has now settled for $2.3 billion, to include its complement of 45 MiG-29 warplanes.

This is still a fraction of the price of an air fleet-equipped modern U.S.-built carrier, even if one were available, or even of the smaller British and French carriers now being developed. But India's current carrier, the Viraat, is the former British vessel HMS Hermes, built in 1959. Obsolete and usually in dock, its obsolescence means India needs another carrier quickly if it is to maintain the complex skills essential to carrier deployment. India's first domestically produced carrier, the Vikrant, now under construction in Cochin, is unlikely to be operational before 2015.

What Putin did not get was any commitment that India would pick Russian warplanes for its planned $11 billion purchase of 126 state-of-the-art fighters, intended to give the country's air force the technological edge over China and Pakistan in the current Asian arms race. It is the deal that everyone wants to win, from the Eurofighter to Boeing's Super Hornet and Russia's MiG-35.

But that arms deal is just a fraction of the estimated $150 billion that India will be sending on energy technology, from nuclear reactors to oil and gas exploration and wind and solar. American hopes of winning a major slice of these contracts have been stalled over an elusive agreement on reprocessing nuclear fuel.

Robert Blake, the senior State Department official dealing with India and its region, is hopeful that a deal can be concluded by this summer. Indian officials are less optimistic and query U.S. insistence that India's parliament enact a limited liability rule on compensation for nuclear accidents, an issue that does not seem to worry Russian and French suppliers.

There is a pattern here. Two far-reaching agreement on U.S.-Indian military cooperation have stalled, as have other projects for hi-tech and space research cooperation.

The real problem is fundamental. Indians complain that the Obama administration still sees India less as a great power in its own right, than as a walk-on player in two issues that worry Washington more. The first is the Afghan-Pakistan imbroglio and the second is U.S.-China relations. Obama's suggestion, during his cap-in-hand visit to Beijing, that China help the United States "manage" the Indo-Pakistan problem "led to the mistrust of Obama that today pervades the Indian establishment," argues influential Indian commentator Professor Madhav Nalapat.

"President Obama's policy of downgrading India to the level of a South Asian power is pushing Delhi closer toward Moscow and Beijing," Nalapat adds." If such an axis takes place, the 'credit' will go to the Obama administration. India sees itself as an Asian power with a global focus. Those unwilling to accept this cannot be defined as friends."

[Ryan Ruck]

Putin Steps Into the India Breach

The Obama administration's neglect of New Delhi is starting to have serious foreign-policy consequences.

MARCH 15, 2010

India's prime minister declared Russia a "key pillar of our foreign policy and a valuable strategic partner" Friday. There's no stronger signal that the Obama administration's neglect of India is starting to have real foreign-policy consequences. If the United States doesn't act quickly, much of the progress in U.S.-India relations over the past decade will be lost.

Mr. Singh is simply renewing long historical ties with Russia; ties that flourished most strongly during the Cold War. Back then, India relied on the Soviet veto to protect itself from possible censure at the United Nations Security Council concerning the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir. India also depended on the Soviets to supply cheap, sophisticated military technology, and counted on them to counter China in the event of renewed conflict along the disputed Himalayan border.

The Soviets, in turn, saw the diplomatic advantage of limiting American influence in India. It was a major diplomatic coup: Moscow could boast of excellent relations with the world's largest democracy and a leader of both the Group of 77 developing nations and a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Later, in the wake of a disastrous invasion of Afghanistan, the Russians could also count on India's studious silence at the U.N. General Assembly during debates about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to New Delhi last week underscored the renewed significance of this bilateral relationship.

Mr. Obama has spent far more time courting states like North Korea, China and Pakistan than he has India.

[American Patriot]

As Vector I think pointed out, Russia is planning to make some stealth planes. India is buying.

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Brazilian President Lula: BRIC countries must forge a transparent system of global governance

Brazilian President Lula weighs in on the BRIC summit where Brazil, Russia, India, and China showed they are committed to building a joint diplomatic and creative approach to world issues.

By Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva / April 16, 2010
BrasÃ*llia

The term “BRIC� was coined only 10 years ago as an acronym meant to capture the new reality that Brazil, Russia, India, and China together had come to account for 15 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.

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We are countries where everything happens on a large scale. We represent nearly one-half of the world’s population and 20 percent of its land surface, and are rich in natural resources.

Today, the BRICs have become essential players in major international decisionmaking. As such, we are acutely aware of our potential as agents of change in making global governance both more transparent and democratic.

This is the message Brazil offered at the second BRIC summit, held here in BrasÃ*lia, where the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China gathered on April 15. We are committed to building a joint diplomatic and creative approach with our BRIC partners in order to tackle such global challenges as food security and energy production in the context of climate change.

The real baptism by fire of the group occurred during the financial crisis of the past two years. Far from diminishing our weight, our collective strategies enabled us to hold our own. In fact, the sound response of the four countries to the crisis of the developed world opened up new alternatives to the shabby dogma inherited from the past.

The collapse of financial markets revealed the failure of paradigms previously considered to be unquestionable. Truths about market deregulation collapsed. The ideal of a minimal state also collapsed. The easing of labor rights is no longer a mantra to fight unemployment.

When all these orthodoxies collapsed, the visible hand of the state protected the economic system from the failure created by the invisible hand of the market.

While some of the major countries let speculative excesses flourish, BRIC countries promoted growth focused on work and prudence. In Brazil, we never lost sight of the need to tackle social inequality, lifting 20 million Brazilians out of poverty since 2003 and making them full citizens.

At the Group of 20 summit, we proposed anticyclical policies, market regulation, curbing tax havens, and renewal of the Bretton Woods institutions. On this last score, we are determined not to let the incipient signs of recovery in the global economy serve as an excuse for abandoning a democratic remodel of these organizations. The BRIC members have not injected nearly $100 billion into the International Monetary Fund just to leave everything as it was before.

As a group, we will continue to advocate the democratization of the multilateral process of decisionmaking. Developing countries have the right to be heard. Bridging the gap that separates them from the rich countries is not only a matter of justice: The world’s economic, social and political stability depends on this. It is our best contribution to peace.

From our perspective as emerging economies, the resources that are needed to overcome hunger and poverty may be considerable but are quite modest when compared with the cost of rescuing failed banks and financial institutions that are victims of their own speculative greed.

At the same time, there is no use offering food and charity if the distortion in world agricultural trade still persists. Unfair subsidies in rich countries discourage local production, foster dependency, and divert resources that would be better used in development programs. For this reason, the conclusion of the Doha Round is critical.

The negotiating impasse on global issues is nowhere as serious as that on climate change. In line with this, the BRIC countries are committed to helping close the deal that was elusive in Copenhagen, Denmark. Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while maintaining robust growth in developing countries requires that everyone do their part – as the BRIC countries have been demonstrating with ambitious initiatives to mitigate their emissions.

For that reason, the large traditional polluters have a special charge.

The balance established by the Kyoto Protocol is essential for us to move forward together.

The international scene is cluttered with old problems, even as new ones emerge. Neither the BRIC members nor any other countries are able to face them alone. In the past, unilateralism has led to impasses, if not human catastrophes, such as Iraq.

In today’s world, we must therefore rely increasingly on each other. For that to happen we must forge a more representative and transparent system of global governance that can both inspire unity of purpose and revitalize the collective will to seek consensual solutions. In this journey toward a new world, the BRIC countries are committed to working together to fulfill our responsibilities.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil. This opinion piece has been translated from the Portuguese.

© 2010 Global Viewpoint Network/ Tribune Media Services. Hosted online by The Christian Science Monitor.

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BRICs take baby steps toward greater global clout

Monday, 19 April 2010 00:00

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The world’s leading emerging powers found little new to agree on in their summit in Brazil, but their assertive tone in demanding more clout in global financial institutions and setting of a deadline for the reforms shows they are slowly becoming a more potent group.

In a joint statement at the end of their second summit, the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China called for swift reforms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to give a greater say to developing nations.

The call itself was not new from a group that was born out of the global financial crisis with a shared goal of shifting the balance of decision making from advanced economies.

But the timing of the united front before this month’s G20 finance ministers and IMF meetings in Washington and a November deadline for the reforms to be completed showed a growing confidence and cohesiveness, analysts and diplomats said.

“Naming times and dates are a way to put on greater pressure and also a possible way for the BRICs to declare a victory by saying that because of this pressure we were able to get things done,� said Michael Glosny, a China scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who follows the BRICs.

Huge differences in national goals and tensions in security and economic policy have prevented the BRICs, which account for about 20 percent of global economic output, from agreeing concrete cooperation in most areas.

They have rowed back from talk last year of setting up a new reserve currency to rival the U.S. dollar and have made no headway on forming joint institutions.

Vague statements from leaders on the group’s goals have reinforced a view that the BRICS, dominated by China in terms of its economic size and influence, have little in common beyond being large and developing.

Yet the group does have shared interests in dealing with economic inequality, food and energy security.

On their central goal of gaining more say in how the global economy is run, they have achieved a more united front that is putting pressure on advanced countries to concede more voting power, more quickly in the IMF and World Bank.

“I think the feeling is that this is a much more aggressive statement of what has come before,� said a Western diplomat in Brasilia, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Brazil, which had appeared to be satisfied with a 5 percent voting shift to developing countries, now looks poised to hold out with the other BRICs for a bigger change.

“We’re not satisfied with the pace of reforms,� Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told Reuters.

The G20 group of major advanced and developing economies has agreed to support a quota shift of at least 5 percent toward developing countries, but other emerging economy groups are pushing for 7 percent.

“The IMF and the World Bank urgently need to address their legitimacy deficits,� said the BRICs’ joint statement, calling for quota reforms to be completed by the November G20 summit in South Korea.

The lack of bold new agreements in other areas does not necessarily mean the young group is not making progress in strengthening ties and building mutual confidence behind the scenes, said Anthony Spanakos, a Brazil scholar at New Jersey’s Montclair State University.

“Much of what is happening is consultation and norm-building, but the symbolism of joint action and leadership that is independent of the U.S. and Europe is important as well,� he said.

The BRICs called on the G20 to be more active in coming up with a strategy for the post-crisis world and said it wanted to play a role in the process.

Beyond that, however, there was little detail given on the BRICs’ vision for the new global financial order.

“Playing a larger role and having greater influence is more than just increasing representation and voting shares,� said Glosny.

“From the statement ... it’s not clear what they want that role to be or how they would want to wield that influence.�

[Ryan Ruck]

BRIC Leaders Meet To Seek Change In Global Order

April 15, 2010

The presidents of Brazil, Russia, India and China will meet Thursday evening to discuss proposals for changes to the global financial system and multinational institutions.

The summit of the BRIC group of emerging market giants was brought forward from Friday at the last minute after Chinese President Hu Jintao decided to rush back to China following a massive earthquake in Qinghai province early Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Hu and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had signed a wide-ranging, four-year bilateral action plan that was light on details but focused on increasing economic ties. They also agreed to jointly push for changes at the World Trade Organization, the Group of 20 nations and other international organizations.

"At the G-20 and all other multilateral institutions, we seek progressive answers for this asymmetric and dysfunctional globalization that humanity is experiencing," Lula told reporters.

Speaking at a joint press conference, Hu said China seeks changes in multinational institutions to safeguard the interests of developing nations.

The BRIC leaders will explore similar proposals. However, they won't be discussing the creation of a multinational currency that could replace the dollar in international transactions.

"Don't expect big news from the summit," said Roberto Jaguaribe, political undersecretary at Brazil's Foreign Affairs Ministry, in a recent interview.

The term BRIC was created by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to describe this group of populous emerging markets, which promised to become more important economically in coming years.

The heads of state of these countries met for the first time in Russia last year and, according to a senior Chinese foreign affairs official, have arranged to meet again in China next year.

Unified in their growing economic importance, the nations are very disparate culturally and are direct competitors in many markets.

"One of the main objectives is to develop common agendas and increase links," said Jaguaribe.

While the BRIC meeting is not expected to yield solid proposals, there was business closed in Brasilia Thursday.

A number of Brazilian and Chinese companies signed agreements for oil, telecommunications and steel projects.

Brazil's government-run oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, signed agreements with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, and the China Development Bank.

Brazilian telephone company Telemar Norte Leste , also known as Oi, signed a supply deal with China's Huawei Technologies Co., while rival operator Vivo Participacoes inked a deal with ZTE Corp.

Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista and China's Wuhan Iron & Steel Co. signed an agreement to build a steel mill at the Acu port complex. The deal continues EBX Investimento Ltda.'s strengthening ties with China after Batista sought investors for his growing portfolio of projects in logistics and iron-ore mining.

Batista's EBX will hold a 30% stake in the steel mill, while Wisco, as the Chinese steelmaker also is known, will retain a 70% share. The plant is expected to have installed annual production capacity of 5 million metric tons of steel products.

Construction of the plant is subject to conclusion of a feasibility study.

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BRICS demand global monetary shake-up, greater influence



3:09pm BST
By Abhijit Neogy and Alexei Anishchuk

SANYA, China (Reuters) - The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure on Thursday for a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the dollar and for a louder voice in international financial institutions.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa also called for stronger regulation of commodity derivatives to dampen excessive volatility in food and energy prices, which they said posed new risks for the recovery of the world economy.

Meeting on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, they said the recent financial crisis had exposed the inadequacies of the current monetary order, which has the dollar as its linchpin.


What was needed, they said in a statement, was "a broad-based international reserve currency system providing stability and certainty" -- thinly veiled criticism of what the BRICS see as Washington's neglect of its global monetary responsibilities.

The BRICS are worried that America's large trade and budget deficits will eventually debase the dollar. They also begrudge the financial and political privileges that come with being the leading reserve currency.

"The world economy is undergoing profound and complex changes," Chinese President Hu Jintao said. "The era demands that the BRICS countries strengthen dialogue and cooperation."

In another dig at the dollar, the development banks of the five BRICS nations agreed to establish mutual credit lines denominated in their local currencies, not the U.S. currency.

The head of China Development Bank (CDB), Chen Yuan, said he was prepared to lend up to 10 billion yuan (936 million pounds) to fellow BRICS, and his Russian counterpart said he was looking to borrow the yuan equivalent of at least $500 million (306 million pounds) via CDB.

"We think this will undoubtedly broaden the opportunities for Russian companies to diversify their loans," Vladimir Dmitriev, the chairman of VEB, Russia's state development bank, told reporters.

ALL DOWN TO THE BRICS
The call by the BRICS for a new monetary order are not new.

But, coming hours before a meeting in Washington of finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations, the traditional power brokers of the world economy, Thursday's communiqué showed the growing confidence of emerging markets.

Burdened by heavy debt, the United States, the euro zone and Japan are struggling to shake off the lingering effects of the 2008 global financial crisis. Rich countries will grow 2.4 percent this year and 2.6 percent in 2012, the International Monetary fund forecast this week.

By contrast, less well-off countries have emerged relatively unscathed. The IMF is forecasting that emerging and developing countries will grow 6.5 percent both this year and next.

"The quality and the durability of the global economic recovery process depends to a great measure on how the BRICS economies perform," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.

The leaders reviewed the global role of the Special Drawing Right, the IMF's accounting unit and reserve asset, which some experts believe could grow into a partial substitute for the dollar.

But they stepped around the issue of whether the yuan should join the SDR, saying only that they welcomed discussion of the composition of the SDR's basket of currencies.

A member-country official said the group was split on whether China's currency, which cannot be freely exchanged except for trade and investment purposes, met the criteria for being part of the SDR.

"There is a need for a broad-basing of the international monetary system. The SDR is an instrument to do that, but we still have no unanimity on the inclusion of the Chinese currency in the SDR as of now," said the official, who declined to be identified.

The SDR now comprises the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the British pound.

"India has said that the SDR is an accounting mechanism used by the IMF, and countries such as Brazil have also said that this (the yuan) should be convertible first," he added.

Though keen on a more diverse global monetary order, Beijing has given no indication that it is ready to make the yuan freely tradable or to dismantle capital controls as the price for the prestige of being part of the SDR.

BROAD-BRUSH TREATMENT
Emerging economies have already won more say in the way the IMF is run, but the BRICS leaders said they were still under-represented.

"We ... agreed on the need for the reform of international financial institutions in order to promote a just economic order," South African President Jacob Zuma said.

On the hot topic of capital flows, the BRICS called "for more attention" to the risks posed by massive cross-border flows of money but went no further.

The group said the world economy, of which its members make up nearly a fifth, still faced headwinds.

"The developments in west Asia and north Africa, and the aftermath of the huge tragedy that befell Japan, have introduced fresh uncertainties in the global recovery process," Singh said.

Swings in commodity prices are also a prime area of concern for the BRICS.

China is the world's biggest importer of many commodities; the other BRICS members are major exporters of natural resources.

China hopes the group will be able to agree on a common stance on commodity price fluctuations at the G20 summit in the French city of Cannes in November.

The main aim of the BRICS is to forge a common emerging-market negotiating stance on issues from climate change to world trade and to act as a counterweight to the West in settings such as the Group of 20 forum of advanced and developing economies.

The BRICS caucus is a work in progress. Thursday's brief meeting, held under tight security at a beach-front hotel, was only its third summit and the first to include South Africa.

The group brings together five countries that, though frequently united in their disinclination to do the West's bidding, are a political and economic mosaic.

"Our economic potential, political influence and our development prospects as an alliance are exceptional," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said.

[vector7]

South Africa gains entry to BRIC Club

Africa gains representative on group of emerging countries as counterparts Brazil, Russia, India and China look to secure closer ties with continent's leading economy

Sébastien Hervieu

Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 19 April 2011 14.04 BST

Article history


South Africa's President Jacob Zuma at the Brics meeting in Hainan. Photograph: Pool/REUTERS Jacob Zuma had to wait four months before really enjoying his Christmas gift. Last Thursday, on China's Hainan island, the South African president joined his counterparts from Brazil, Russia, India and China for the third summit meeting of the informal group named after the initials of its members. Formerly Bric, it is now the Brics club.

The invitation to join the group was issued on 24 December. Zuma had worked hard, visiting each of the Bric members in 2010, and he was rewarded with a diplomatic victory. He lost no time endorsing his new partners' concerns about the massive influx of foreign assets currently plaguing emerging countries, where yields are higher than in developed nations.

Initially the decision to bring South Africa into the club prompted surprise, even incomprehension. How could this economic dwarf be a member, with Mexico, South Korea and Turkey still left out in the cold? South Africa's gross domestic product only amounts to one-sixteenth of China's output, it only has 50 million inhabitants and annual growth barely exceeds 3.5%, far behind China (10.3% last year). Thanks to their booming economies, the four other Brics members will contribute 60% of global growth in 2014, according to the IMF.

"For South Africa to be treated as part of Bric doesn't make any sense to me," commented Jim O'Neill last December. The chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management International, who originally coined the acronym, added, "But South Africa as a representative of the African continent is a different story."

In choosing to broaden their constituency the Brics countries have made a significant move. This is no longer an artificial body founded on comparable economic performance, but increasingly a political club representing the developing world, determined to counterbalance western influence in major international forums.

At their meeting in Sanya the five leaders discussed reform of the world's financial bodies. Zuma echoed demands by India and Brazil for a permanent seat on the UN security council.

Of course South African membership of this select club is connected to the race to grab the mineral resources emerging nations so badly need. Not only is it the world's fourth largest source of gold and diamonds, it is also sitting on more than three-quarters of global platinum reserves. China became its top trading partner in 2009.

Zuma has also presented South Africa as the gateway to the African continent and its 1 billion potential consumers. "South Africa provides the institutional stability, depth of financial markets, and regulatory efficiency that many corporates will look to capitalise on as a base for wider pan-African operations," notes a study by the Standard Bank (one of the country's four largest banks). There are nevertheless limits to how far this argument can be taken, given the continent's political complexity.

"The future for South Africa is with the African market and it is a risky ploy to help competitors to enter it," warns Lyal White, head of the Centre for Dynamic Markets at Pretoria University. "Instead South African firms need to attract investors from Bric countries and then develop in other parts of the continent."

Zuma, who has promised to create 5m jobs by 2020, took 70 business executives with him to the Sanya summit. "Shoprite, a big retail firm, has huge potential for growth in India, but the government has so far refused to let it in. Now there is a great opportunity to negotiate," says Simon Freemantle, a research analyst at Standard Bank. "Our banking and financial sectors are pretty sophisticated and have a strong hand to play in these countries," adds Dawie Roodt, chief economist of Efficient Group.

[American Patriot]

So with South Africa does that make them BRICAss?

[vector7]

BRICs

[Ryan Ruck]

BRICS...

[vector7]

BRIC nations helping eurozone overcome debt crisis is impossible, says Russian deputy finance minister Sergei Storchak

The world’s largest emerging economies will not act as a bloc to ease Europe’s financial crisis, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said.


Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said different government procedures among the countries make joint action such as a loan or buying bonds impossible

Bloomberg

10:42PM BST 22 Sep 2011
Comments

“It’s impossible, I’m certain of that,� Storchak told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “If the BRICS are going to act to overcome the eurozone’s financial problems, then it will be based on the possibilities presented by working through the International Monetary Fund.�

Finance ministry and central bank officials from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met before this week’s IMF annual meeting to discuss coordinating policy as Europe reels from a sovereign debt crisis and growth slows in the US. There is a “high� danger that Greece will not fulfill all of its debt obligations, Storchak said.

“But whether that means creditors, Greek debt holders, will declare them in default is still a question,� he said. “They might not.�

Declaring Greece in default with the idea of triggering covenants in the country’s debt would be a serious step for creditors, he said. “That would mean, at a minimum, a haircut and then maybe even cutting off part of the body.�

Neither Brazil nor other members of BRIC, which began including South Africa in its meetings earlier this year, proposed a joint effort to help Europe going into Thursday’s meeting, Storchak said. Russia would not want to provide individual help to a country like Greece without seeing a debt stability analysis like those required of Paris Club borrowers, Storchak said.

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Different government procedures among the countries make joint action such as a loan or buying bonds impossible, Storchak said.

“Sovereigns aren’t banks, they aren’t able to provide a syndicated loan,� he said. “Methodologically, that would be a fairly difficult thing to do.�

Working through the IMF remains the “most practical and pragmatic path�, he added.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Monday that countries with “major reserves� might consider options to help ease Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

The countries said in a statement after their meeting that they would provide support “if necessary� through the IMF or other global financial bodies. The BRICS are also “concerned with the slow pace of quota and governance reforms in the IMF�.

With work lagging on implementing changes agreed in 2010, BRICS are more likely to contribute to the new agreement on borrowing as a way to help through the IMF than trying to further boost their sway by raising their shareholding, Storchak said.

[American Patriot]

Eurozone... isn't that kinda like Ozone? It's corrosive, smells bad and ruins the atmosphere.

[samizdat]

Eurozone... isn't that kinda like Ozone? It's corrosive, smells bad and ruins the atmosphere.

Take it easy on the pobre europeans. They have nasty neighbors. (so be it union) zone-

The farty neighbors or "little squirts" oil, have big subs & tanks.

[vector7]

The Western World Is 'Finished Financially': CIO

Published: Wednesday, 30 Nov 2011 | 7:38 AM ET

By: Antonya Allen
Assistant Editor, CNBC



The Western world has run out of ideas and is "finished financially" while emerging economies across the world will continue to grow, David Murrin, CIO at Emergent Asset Management told CNBC on the tenth anniversary of coining of the so-called BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, by Goldman Sachs' Jim O'Neill.

"I still subscribe and I've spoken about it regularly on this show that this is the moment when the Western world realizes it is finished financially and the implications are huge, whereas the emerging BRIC countries are at the beginning of their continuation cycle," Murrin told CNBC.

Murrin added he believes the power shift from the West to emerging economies beyond Europe and the United States was "unstoppable" and he blamed a lack of ideas from Western leaders on how to stimulate growth together with contracted demographics and rising inflation as catalysts for Western decline.

"We suffer from no growth and we suffer from imported inflation… that means we have negative real growth and societies fracture when you have negative real growth and quite simply our society faces fractures for trying to stick Europe back together again is not going to work with that underlying paradigm, unless you can create five percent growth to overcome that imported inflation," Murrin explained.

Murrin said that the East was depending less on the West and the rise of a consumer society was the first step in the expansion of an economic empire.

"If you look at the cycle of an empire system from regionalization to expansion to empire, the first phases of that catalyst are when you have a self fuelled consumer society and so actually that process of building your consumer base which is really what's going on in China, day by day their consumer base increases and the dependence on the West decreases," he said.

Containing China

Murrin added that while China is by far the biggest emerging economy and would be at the center of a new economic order, other emerging nations were set to join the BRIC countries and new political orders and alliances would come about as a result.

"This isn't just a BRIC story, this is the end of the Christian Western Empire versus the rise of the whole emerging world led by China as the foremost and most powerful," Murrin told CNBC.

"I think it's going to be the whole world trying to contain China's growth and there's going to be completely new alliances that take place... between Australia, Japan and India and America and possibly Russia if the foreign policy is expansive enough, there's going to be a ring of containment trying to hold this bulging entity which is like no other nation we've ever seen coherently challenge for control of world commodities and resources," he added.

Intervention Not the Answer

Finally, Murrin stressed that Europe in particular was set to experience a rapid and deep decline and intervention by the European Union and its financial institutions was not a solution to stimulate growth.

"I think there's a real reality amongst investors and just taxi drivers, that without growth, the system's not sustainable, so intervention is just a drug and we all know that the more drugs you put into someone, the more the system becomes immune to their response and so I don't see this as a solution," he said.

Pointing to previous economic downturns, Murrin said the West was much less equipped than the emerging world to deal with its current decline.

"In all our examples of disastrous events, Argentina, Russia, the Asian crisis, they're not good references for us in the West because they take place in countries with good demographics, good commodity stories and essentially underlying tides which lift them away from their problems," he said.

"We in the West have none of those, we live in a world where resources are increasing in prices, where we're a consumer society, we're an old society, we're not innovative, we're not expansive, so we don't have any of those natural lifting qualities to actually pick us out of the mire which is what decline is really about," he added.

© 2011 CNBC.com