BRICS: Putin Proposes to Create New Investment Platform

During an expanded BRICS meeting in Kazan, Russian republic of Tatarstan, President Vladimir Putin condemned the use of the dollar as a blackmail weapon. According to the Russian leader, who identified the US currency as “the most important instrument of world finance,” countries that use the dollar as a weapon are making a mistake: “Using the dollar, the most important instrument of world finance, to achieve political goals undermines confidence in this currency and reduces its capabilities,” emphasized Putin, according to whom “Russia is not abandoning the dollar, but is forced to look for alternatives.”

Putin also suggested that BRICS partners create a new investment platform as soon as possible to support national economies and investments. “We propose to create a new BRICS investment platform, which will become a powerful tool to support our national economies, as well as to provide financial resources to countries in the global South and East,” Putin said, emphasizing that “in the future, BRICS will be able to create mechanisms to resolve disputes in e-commerce.”

Regarding commodity trade within the group, the Russian president said the member countries “are world leaders in the production of grain and pulses.” In this context, Russia, the acting BRICS president, suggested launching a BRICS grain exchange that would “contribute to the formation of fair indicators of grain prices in the world.” Russia is the absolute world leader in the production and export of various types of grain. According to forecasts of the Russian Ministry of Agriculture, this year’s grain harvest will amount to 120 million tons, of which 85 million tons will be wheat.

Overall, Putin said that the BRICS countries’ share of the global economy in purchasing power parity terms will exceed that of the G7 countries by the end of 2024. “GDP will amount to 36.7% and will certainly exceed the share of the G7 countries, which in 2024 will be slightly above 30 percent,” said the Russian head of state, according to whom “the burden of chronic debt in developed countries continues to grow, the practice of unilateral sanctions, protectionism, and unfair competition is expanding and, as a direct result, there is a fragmentation of international trade, the market of foreign direct investment, especially in developing countries.”

At the same time, the BRICS economies demonstrate resilience to these processes “thanks to reasonable and balanced policies.” According to the Russian president, world trade and the global economy are changing significantly, with centers of activity shifting to emerging markets.

To give an impetus to trade between the BRICS countries, Putin suggested creating an intergovernmental platform to ensure fair competition and a separate platform dedicated to the market of precious metals and diamonds. Finally, Putin called for increased cooperation in finance, technology, medicine, logistics, and education within the group.

For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that “the need to reform the international financial architecture is becoming increasingly evident in today’s international panorama.” Xi Jinping asked not only from the BRICS countries but also from all nations in the Global South for “helpful efforts to strengthen the BRICS-controlled New Development Bank, as well as initiatives to encourage the international financial system to respond more effectively to the changing dynamics of the global economy.”

For Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is attending the 16th BRICS summit via videoconference due to a “domestic incident,” “it is time to move forward with the creation of alternative payment methods for transactions between the group’s member countries.” However, Lula clarified that at the moment “we are not talking about replacing national currencies with a single BRICS currency,” but we have to work “to ensure that the multipolar order we want is reflected in the international financial system.”

On January 1, 2025, Brazil will assume the BRICS presidency. Lula said the Latin American country was ready to renew the bloc’s “vocation in the struggle for a multipolar world and for less asymmetric relations between countries.” According to the Brazilian president, BRICS “cannot accept the imposition of apartheid in access to vaccines and medicines, as happened during the pandemic, as well as in the development of artificial intelligence,” an expertise that becomes “the privilege of the few.”

“We must strengthen our technological capabilities and encourage the adoption of non-exclusive multilateral contexts in which the voice of governments prevails over private interests,” Lula emphasized, recalling the weight of BRICS in the recent development of the world economy, not comparable to other countries in the global financial architecture that continues to ensure flows “to the rich countries.” From the Brazilian president’s standpoint, “this is a reverse Marshall Plan, where new and developing economies finance economically developed countries.”

Finally, the participants of the BRICS summit in Kazan adopted a final declaration containing general assessments of the global situation, as well as long-term development goals of the group. As Putin said following the BRICS enlarged meeting, “we have prepared a final statement that contains general assessments of the state of affairs in the world, summarizes the achievements of the Russian BRICS chairmanship, and defines benchmarks for long-term cooperation.” Putin emphasized that “the declaration will also be sent as a joint document to the UN.”