BRICS to set up development bank to focus on infrastructure development

28 Mar 2013 Evaluate

With an aim to reform the global financial planning and finance infrastructure in the emerging economies, the BRICS nations have agreed on the setting up of a development bank to fund infrastructure and development projects in the five-nation grouping of emerging powers. The summit also established a self-managed Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of $100 billion to tackle any financial crisis in the emerging economies.

As per the fifth BRICS (Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa) summit, the developing countries are facing challenges of infrastructure development due to insufficient long-term financing and foreign direct investment, especially investment in capital stock, which constrains global aggregate demand. Further, BRICS co-operation towards more productive use of global financial resources could make a positive contribution to addressing this problem.

However, BRICS’ leaders were unable to agree on some basic issue like how much capital such a bank would need thereby leaving it to the finance ministers to negotiate this and other issues before September. The development bank, mooted by India at the last year's Summit in Delhi, was originally proposed to be started with a capital of $50 billion with $10 billion from each of the members.

Regarding the set up of development bank, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it gave him great satisfaction to note that one of the ideas that they discussed first in New Delhi that of instituting a mechanism to recycle surplus savings into infrastructure investments in developing countries has been given a concrete shape during the Durban Summit. Moreover, BRICS Summit also launched a Business Council to encourage investment and trade in member countries to expand business cooperation.

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