BRICS nations are on their way to establish open investment policies that are non-discriminatory, transparent with predictable conditions for investments and may decide to avoid protectionism in relation to cross-border investments. They also have a proposal to set up a common payment gateway to promote e-commerce among BRICS nations and to promote e-commerce among the five leading emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) is also to discuss, in a meeting in Beijing this week, measures for closer cooperation among the them for developing their respective national single window for trade facilitation.
BRIC, an association of five leading developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China was formed in 2009, to reshape the global economy, with the objective of becoming an influential voice on the global economic and financial system, which developed countries had dominated until then. The idea conceived by the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, participating in the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York in September, 2006, gave birth to BRIC, with a full-scale diplomatic meeting, i.e., the First BRIC Summit, on the 16th of June, 2009 at Sevantianoy’s House in Yekaterinburg, Russia, hosted by Dmitry Medvedev, with participation of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Man- mohan Singh of India, and Hu Jintao of China; with focus on means of improving the global economic situation and reforming financial institutions and with hopes of better co-operation in future. This was the beginning of involvement in the global affairs.
The Eighth BRICS Summit, held under the theme, “Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions”, was hosted by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, on the 15th & the 16th of October, 2016 at the Taj Exotica in Benaulin, Goa. Brazilian President Michel Temer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and South African President Jacob Zuma attended the meeting. The grouping took forward the process of creating an emerging market network to make the architecture of global governance and economic interaction among nations more equal than it had been since the victors of World War II gave it its present shape. While almost all global issues ranging from terror to urbanisation and climate change were discussed, the broad sweep of the final Goa Declaration reflected the progress achieved in the specific areas where these five major emerging markets could make a difference by working together and coordinating their policies with one another.
Next, the Ninth BRICS Summit is scheduled to be held in September 2017, in Xiamen in the eastern Fujian province, under the theme, “BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future”. China has released the theme and highlighted five key priority areas which include deepening cooperation, strengthening global governance, carrying out people-to-people exchanges, making institutional improvements and building broader partnerships.
The ninth summit in Xiamen summit will be held at a time when relations between New Delhi and Beijing are not very cordial due to differences over India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group and over the ban of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
Above all, the global development of Donald Trump administration in the US and the new regime’s protectionist measures and pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has left the baton of free trade among the emerging economies of BRICS along with other like-minded Asia-Pacific nations, may have a major impact on deliberations between BRICS nations.
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