Align with BRICS or be left behind

“Align with BRICS, or be left behind!” headlines the 30 October issue of the Australian Alert Service. You can remedy the lack of attention in mainstream media to the historic summit of the BRICS group, held in Kazan, Russia on 22-24 October, by reading the reports on it in this and the previous week’s issue of the AAS.

We include the basics: With thirteen nations added to BRICS as “partner states”, the group will now represent 4.6 billion people, around 57 per cent of the world’s population. And we zero in on some singular developments, such as the first official bilateral meeting in five years between the leaders of China and India, following the recent resolution of their border dispute.  

On the central issue of the world financial order, the BRICS countries are proceeding at a cautious pace on a BRICS payment system with its own unit of account, but some other important initiatives were made. Russia nominated former President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff to continue as head of the New Development Bank, where she has boosted its function as an alternative mechanism to fund real-economy development projects. Russian President Vladimir Putin also proposed a new BRICS “investment platform” and a BRICS grain exchange. 

We have compiled our articles on the Kazan summit into one document, including:

• “Align with BRICS or be left behind”
• “BRICS now 4.6 billion strong”
• “The BRICS ‘vector of human development’”
• “Putin previews BRICS summit: Make haste slowly”
• “Financial expert pushes pilot for new reserve currency”

Click here to download the package (PDF).