Prime Minister Narendra Modi leaves for Berlin on Sunday on his way to Fortaleza in Brazil for the sixth BRICS summit. This will be his first multilateral summit, giving him a chance to meet world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The meeting of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) leaders will be held on July 15, when they are expected to sign important economic agreements on the BRICS bank as well as release the Fortaleza Declaration. While the BRICS grouping, a term coined in a Goldman Sachs report, is seen as an economic grouping, this meeting is expected to send out a strong message of political unity as well.
The leaders will sign documents to create a development bank to finance infrastructure and sustainability projects and establish a reserve fund to assist countries of the bloc in coping with balance-of-payments eventualities, says a note from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency has quoted Mr. Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov as confirming that Shanghai would host the BRICS bank, while the timetable for rotating presidency would be announced.
Seen as a counterpoint to the World Bank and the IMF, the BRICS bank will have an initial capital of $50 billion, while the contingency reserve fund will be $100 billion, with each country’s contribution as follows: China $41 billion, Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each, and South Africa $5 billion.
