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Brazil, Russia, India and China form bloc to challenge US dominance
Tony Halpin, Times Online
With public hugs and backslaps among its leaders, a new political bloc was formed yesterday to challenge the global dominance of the United States.
The first summit of heads of state of the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — ended with a declaration calling for a “multipolar world order”, diplomatic code for a rejection of America’s position as the sole global superpower.
President Medvedev of Russia went further in a statement with his fellow leaders after the summit, saying that the BRIC countries wanted to “create the conditions for a fairer world order”. He described the meeting with President Lula da Silva of Brazil, the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, as “an historic event”.
…“We are committed to advance the reform of international financial institutions so as to reflect changes in the world economy. The emerging and developing economies must have a greater voice,” they said.
…The BRIC summit coincided with a two-day meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) in Yekaterinburg, which further underlined the determination of Moscow and Beijing to assert themselves against the West.
The SCO comprises Russia, China and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia have observer status and President Karzai of Afghanistan attended the summit as a guest.
(17 June 2009)
BRIC countries seek more clout at summit
Nick Godt, MarketWatch
Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so-called BRIC countries, met on Tuesday for their first-ever economic summit, in a concerted effort to assert their weight in the global economic and financial arena.
But in the summit’s official statement, they treaded cautiously on how best to diversify their assets away from the dollar while trying to avoid disrupting markets and attempts of a global economic recovery.
With the global economy and financial system still on the mend after nearly collapsing over the past year-and-a-half, the meeting aimed to outline the common interests between BRIC countries, notably on the subject of currencies. Concerns have mounted that the dollar might resume a multiyear slide and hurt foreign-held dollar assets.
While the joint statement from the meeting called for a “diversified, stable and predictable currency” system, it made no direct challenge to the dollar as the world’s global reserve currency.
…The summit comes on the heels of the Group of Eight leading countries’ meeting over the weekend. There, the Group of Seven most industrialized countries plus Russia agreed to support the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. European and other exporting countries have an interest in keeping the dollar strong, which helps cheapen their exports.
But with the U.S. government printing massive amounts of dollars to stimulate the economy, concerns that the dollar might resume a multiyear slide and hit dollar assets have led some countries to call for an alternative international reserve currency.
China, which has converted much of its export-produced dollars into U.S. government debt, is the largest holder of Treasurys in the world. BRIC countries hold nearly one-third of U.S. overseas debt.
…”The leading emerging market countries are seeking a stronger voice in international financial institutions such as the IMF to reflect their increasing economic and financial clout in the global economy,” said Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk analysis at IHS Global Insight, in a note.
(17 June 2009)
News Analysis: BRIC makes formal debut with first summit meeting
China View
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China, collectively known as the BRIC countries, will hold their first summit meeting on Tuesday in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.
The four nations, as the key emerging economies in the world, are contributing increasingly to global economic growth and playing a vital role in stabilizing the world economic situation amidst the spreading international financial crisis.
BRIC’s upcoming summit meeting, which has grabbed much of the international spotlight, marks the grouping’s formal debut on the world arena.
ABOUT BRIC
“BRIC” is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China, the four major developing countries.
Jim O’Neill, global head of economic research at Goldman Sachs, is credited with putting forward the BRIC concept in 2001. In a report in 2003, O’Neill predicted that the world economic structure would have been reshuffled by 2050, and the BRICs would overtake most developed Western nations such as Britain, France, Italy and Germany and would stand with the United States and Japan to be the world’s six major economies.
…As BRIC refers to four of the world’s fast growing economies, economy and finance would likely top the agenda of the first meeting of the BRIC leaders, apart from strengthening the framework for cooperation, said Brazilian Deputy Foreign Minister Roberto Jaguaribe in a recent interview with Xinhua.
Jaguaribe said discussions would likely be held on decisions taken at the G20 and G8 plus five summits and the right of emerging countries to have a bigger say in international affairs.
According to professor Sun Lijian, deputy dean of the Economic School at Fudan University in Shanghai, BRIC leaders are expected to ask the U.S. and European governments as well as relevant international organizations to strengthen supervision of these countries’ financial capital and enhance risk warnings and information disclosure in the financial services.
(14 June 2009)
