BRICS sets up business council to boost cooperation

PanARMENIAN.Net - At the BRICS summit in Durban, the member countries have set up a business council that will bring the partnership of the five nations to a new level, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said Wednesday, March 27, according to RIA Novosti.

The council will serve as a tool for business cooperation among business circles of the BRICS member states: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Russia’s presidential aide Yury Ushakov said earlier that the council’s main task would be implementing multilateral investment projects.

The presidency of the council will rotate among the member states’ business representatives, with the country that is hosting the organization’s annual summit taking the chair.

Russia will be represented in the BRICS Business Council by Sergei Katyrin, who heads the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a non-governmental organization that represents the interests of businesses in all sectors.

Other members from the Russian side who will be directly involved in the council’s activities are VEB CEO Vladimir Dmitriyev, Russian Direct Investment Fund Director General Kirill Dmitriyev, Russian Technologies CEO Sergei Chemezov and Russian Railways President Vladimir Yakunin.

Russia’s presidential aide said other business representatives, including the heads of Russia’s largest companies, will also participate in the council’s activities.

The two-day summit of the five major developing economies, which began on Tuesday, is taking place in Durban, South Africa.

Finance ministers of the BRICS countries failed to reach a final agreement on the establishment of a development bank for the organization, but agreed to continue talks on the issue, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Tuesday.

The idea of setting up a BRICS development bank as an alternative to the Western-dominated World Bank and the International Monetary Fund came from India at the 2012 meeting of the organization’s finance ministers in Mexico.

The leaders of the BRICS countries held their first official summit in 2009, and it has since been an annual event.

According to the World Bank, the BRICS member states are driving almost 50 percent of global economic growth.