India’s Modi Calls For Doubling Of Trade Between BRICS Countries

The 8th BRICS Summit that was held in Goa, India concluded earlier this week with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging leaders of emerging economies to double the size of trade between them over the next five years.

The summit had leaders of five key emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa meeting to discuss trade and investment opportunities.

In a statement, PM Modi said

In 2015, intra-BRICS trade stood at about $250 billion. We should set ourselves a target to double this number to $500 billion by 2020. This requires businesses and industry in all five countries to scale up their engagement. And, for governments to facilitate this process to the fullest. Our agreement on a tax and custom cooperation framework is a good start

PM Modi stated that the work done by the group had a lot of significance for the developing world. He pointed out that BRICS had played a major role in influencing the global agenda for change, citing the group’s involvement in key agreements like the Paris Climate Agreement, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development and Agenda 2030.

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Earlier during a meeting held as a part of the Summit, PM Modi asked the BRICS Business Council to work with member countries to develop stronger commercial ties and stated that holding events like the first recently-concluded BRICS Trade Fair helped in achieving this goal.

The BRICS Business Council Report was also released as a part of the meeting. The report has recommended that discussions be held by the countries for setting up a rating agency specifically for emerging economies. Another key recommendation was to create a group of angel investors to encourage investments. The council has also called upon countries to collaborate on agriculture sector by sharing best practices among themselves.

K.V. Kamath President of the BRICS New Development Bank also spoke during the summit. He stated that the aim of the newly-created bank in the next year was to achieve incremental revenue of $2.5 billion which he said would be largely in the sector of sustainable and green infrastructure. He added that member countries would be approached for mobilizing funds via bond markets.

Kamath also highlighted that the bank had approved loans worth $911 million towards projects in renewable energy sector across member countries. The bank which is headquartered in Shanghai recently finished its first year of operations.

Charlie Harrison

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