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Concerned over the impact of the Euro zone crisis on world trade, BRICS countries on Wednesday called for greater policy co-ordination and enhanced trade and investment to boost growth.
With intra-BRICS trade currently at around $230 billion (at an average annual growth rate of 28 per cent), the BRICS Trade Ministers sought measures to take it to $500 billion by 2015.
The five emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are also in talks to set up a BRICS Development Bank.
The BRICS Summit on Thursday is expected to see the signing of a framework agreement on extending credit facilities in the respective local currencies and multi-lateral letter of credit confirmation to facilitate intra-BRICS trade.
The Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, noted a decline in demand in Europe and said, “Now is the time to focus on setting new intra-BRICS trade and investment targets to ensure easy flow of capital, knowledge and information.”
He said BRICS nations will be defining the new global architecture, given their strengths and complementarities and huge reserves of natural resources. Mr Sharma was speaking at a BRICS Business Forum meeting organised by industry bodies FICCI, CII and Assocham.
Terming the recent decline in India's GDP growth as “disturbing”, Mr Sharma said “With enhanced economic engagement with BRICS, we will be able to overcome and move to a growth trajectory of 7.5-8 per cent soon.”
Rising prices
Observing that the Chinese economic growth had slowed down due to the rising prices of labour and raw materials, its Commerce Minister, Mr Chen Deming, said China was keen to develop ties with its BRICS counterparts.
He said in the next five years China was expected to import $10 trillion worth of goods, adding that it was looking to buy more from India, Brazil and South Africa.
The Ministers emphasised the need to resist protectionist tendencies to promote international trade.
BRICS countries also decided to enhance cooperation on customs; trade facilitation; investment promotion; small and medium enterprises collaboration; trade data collection and harmonisation; e-commerce; and protection of intellectual property rights.
Voicing concern at the current impasse in the WTO's Doha Development Round, the Ministers said they were fully committed to early conclusion of negotiations based on the progress made in the Round since 2001.
The Ministers agreed to coordinate their positions at the WTO and in other multilateral fora such as the forthcoming meeting of the G20 Trade Ministers.
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