Russia announces BRICS ‘virtual secretariat’
July 3, 2015, 5:58 am

Russian Foreign Minister (center) at the BRICS Youth Forum in Moscow on 2nd July 2015 [brics2015.ru]

“We do need organisational principles in order to feel more comfortable drafting documents and communicating with colleagues in the BRICS capitals. A so-called “virtual secretariat” is being created for this purpose on the same principle as the network university. This is an e-facility that will maintain communication between the principal agencies in the five countries,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

He was speaking at a BRICS Youth Forum in Moscow on Thursday.

The BRICS countries make up about 40% of the world’s population and a combined economy of about $16 trillion.

“BRICS emerged organically. There was no artificial initiative…Announcing the establishment of an organisation with member-cards and a headquarters would mean bureaucratising the cooperation process that currently suits absolutely everyone,” Lavrov said in response to a question at the Youth Forum.

“When the leaders and other participants in the BRICS process feel that they need a standing structure with a base somewhere, they will adopt the relevant decisions. For now, however, we have the optimal format for the development of BRICS,” he added.

The BRICS countries have announced a new BRICS Bank and a $100 billion currency reserve fund, institutions that are expected to rival the World Bank and the IMF in the near future.

The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the first new multilateral development lender in decades has also won support from governments around the world, some of them prominent US allies like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia among others.

The headquarters of the BRICS Bank and AIIB will be in the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing respectively.

The five emerging economies are also looking at creating a new Energy Alliance and a BRICS rating network to counterbalance the Big 3- Moody’s, Fitch and S&P, which together account for a 90 per cent share of the ratings market.

The Russian Foreign Minister on Thursday said “a new and very important period has begun in the group’s activity”.

“BRICS is also a centre of gravity for those who think the same way and favour a more just system of international relations, including economic ties,” Lavrov added.

Russia has hosted BRICS civil and academic forums in the run-up to the Leaders Summit on 8-9 July in Ufa.

The BRICS have evolved from the original four-member term coined in 2001 by then-Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill to describe the growing weight of the largest emerging markets in the global economy. In 2011, South Africa joined to give the BRICS a broader geographic representation.

TBP