At the beginning of the past decade, Brazil, Russia, India and China, with large
domestic markets and growing economies, stood out from the rest.
A phonetically suitable acronym – BRIC – was then created with their
initials as a promotional element of a portfolio with risky investments. Because
of the stability of their political framework and their continued economic growth,
already in the mid-2000s, an opportunity surfaced to explore the possibility of
joint action between these countries in major international forums of global
governance.
The original idea was to create a politically cohesive group as a counterbalance
to the major international players – the US and the EU. The first meetings date
back to 2008 and the formalisation of the group as a new voice on
the international stage took place in 2009, with the Summit of the Heads of State
and Government in Yekaterinburg, Russia. In 2011 South Africa’s entry was
formalised, thereby completing the BRICS acronym.
Starting in 2008, meetings between ministers of different areas and senior
government officials multiplied,Providing substance to a broad international
agenda which included not only Group of Twenty (G-20), but also
Other international forums related to trade and the environment.
The BRICS is an association formed by countries in four continents: Brazil in
the Americas, Russia in Europe, India and China in Asia and South Africa
in Africa. Its member states cover an area of over 39,000,000 square kilometers,
which is approximately 27% of the world's land surface.
The Heads of Governments of these States meet annually in a number of
forums and on the sidelines of a number of international conferences. They seek
to promote trade, financial, political and cultural cooperation among Member
States and to "reform" global governance structures, particularly in the economic
and financial fields - working with the G20 Financial Forum, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank - as well as "reforming" institutions Such as
the United Nations.
From 2000 to 2008, the share of these four countries in world output rose
rapidly, from 16% to 22%, and their economies performed better than
the average during the subsequent global recession.
In 2015, the new development bank opened by the BRICS Group in Shanghai,
China, was launched. The Bank aims to balance the world's forces and end
the dominance of one particular power over the economy. This bank was among
the many things and plans that the BRICS Group sought to establish. Balance of
power and the curtailment of US policy that controls the global economy.
History of the BRICS establishing
In 2006, the BRICS was initiated by four countries: Brazil, Russia, India and
China. The prime ministers of these four countries met in New York on
the sidelines of a UN General Assembly meeting. And in 2009 they held their
first independent summit.
In 2010, through several negotiations in Russia in the city of Yekaterinburg,
South Africa sought to join the BRIC Group and formally joined them in
December of that year, becoming the name of the BRIC Group, to the BRICS
Group in its planned major economic plan, Said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov, declaring his desire to implement the binding agreements of the current
parties, without expanding plan and without adding other countries at that
moment.
Structure of the BRICS Group
The BRICS Group is located in Shanghai, China, and the new development
bank has also opened in Shanghai.
The group's chairmanship will be rotated every year, as will the hosting of
the summits each year in a rotating member state. In 2009, Dmitry Medvedev
hosted the event in Yekaterinburg, Russia. In 2010 he was hosted by Lula da
Silva in Brasilia, Brazil, and in 2011 hosted by Hu Jintao in Sanya, China, hosted
by Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, India in 2012, hosted by Jacob Zuma in
Durban, South Africa in 2013, and in 2014 hosted by Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.
Russia received the presidency from Brazil in 2015.
In the presidency of Russia was launched the New Development Bank,
the Monetary Reserve Fund, they agreed to establish a New Development Bank
(NDB) at their summit meeting. They will have a president (an Indian for the first
six years), a Board of Governors Chair (a Russian), a Board of Directors Chair
(a Brazilian), and a headquarters (in Shanghai).
The capital of the BRICS Group is huge. It is about $ 200 billion. It is divided
into two halves: $ 100 billion capital for BRICS International Development Bank
and $ 100 billion for the cash reserve fund.
The initial authorized capital of the bank is $100 bln divided into 1 mln shares
having a par value of $100,000 each. The initial subscribed capital of the NDB is
$50 bln divided into paid-in shares ($10 bln) and callable shares ($40 bln).
The initial subscribed capital of the bank was equally distributed among
the founding members. The Agreement on the NDB specifies that the voting
power of each member will be equal to the number of its subscribed shares in
the capital stock of the bank.
Objectives of the BRICS Group
- The BRICS Group aims to balance the international economy and end
the monopolistic policy of the United States to dominate global financial policy.
- Creating an effective alternative to the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank.
- achieving economic integration among the five member States economically
and politically, through establishing mechanisms of contribution between these
countries in times of crisis or the time of economic deterioration, instead of
resorting to one of the other dominant institutions.
- Developing the infrastructure of the five member countries, with an effective
method of granting and exchanging loans among members in a way that does
not adversely affect any country in them or cause any economic imbalance.
-Liberalizing those countries from the constraints of borrowing from other
Western institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), thereby
enhancing their global economic security by liberalizing them and saving them
from the benefits of Western institutions.
