BRICS leaders arrive in Brisbane for G20 Summit
November 14, 2014, 3:22 pm

Photo taken on Nov. 14, 2014 shows a light show in Brisbane, Australia. The G20 Summit is to be held in Brisbane on Nov. 15 to Nov. 16 [Xinhua]

The five leaders will also attend a BRICS meet on the sidelines, where they will discuss individual ratification of the newly-formed $100 billion BRICS Bank and the $100 billion Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) by lawmakers in the five countries.

South African President Jacob Zuma was the first among the BRICS leaders to arrive in Brisbane earlier on Thursday, followed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is attending the Group of 20 gathering for the first time.

Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are also traveling to Canberra for bilateral visits and discussions with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Both Xi and Modi will address the Australian parliament, along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and UK Premier David Cameron.

This year’s G20 priorities have been listed as “Strategies to stimulate growth” and “Building global economic resilience”.

The bloody civil war in Syria had overwhelmed talks about global economics in last year’s G20 Summit in Russia.

“Thanks to the Australian presidency, the Brisbane Summit meeting has finally returned the G20 to a “business-like” track. Rather than finger pointing and blame-shifting, member countries are now trying to work together on a series of policies to revitalize economic growth,” says He Fan, advisor to the Chinese government, writing for The BRICS Post.

Meanwhile, ahead of landing in Brisbane on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin lauded the economic trajectory of BRICS.

Putin said the GDP of the BRICS countries calculated at the purchasing power parity is greater than that of the G7, the Group of major industrialized nations.

“As far as I know, the GDP of BRICS is $37.4 trillion, while that of the G7 is $34.5 trillion. And if we go and say: ‘No, thank you, we are going to do this and that here on our own, and you can do it the way you want it,’ this will only add to the imbalances. If we are really set to resolve some issues, we should do that together,” he said.

TBP