Source:Xinhua
President confident of more unity after successful
The Fifth BRICS Summit in
At the summit of
BRICS leaders, from left, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Xi Jinping, South African President Jacob Zuma,
"Slower economic growth doesn't imply a downhill path for BRICS. On the contrary, the development potential is very promising," Xi said.
It is just five years since the BRICS were established, he said, and it is still at a developmental stage and should focus on boosting ties.
Improving the standard of living for 3 billion people will create massive opportunities, Xi said, and he called for major cooperation projects.
"The potential of BRICS cooperation has not yet been fully explored," Xi said. Trade volume among the five countries only accounts for less than 1 percent of the global volume, he added.
He encouraged Chinese entrepreneurs to be more involved in the economic development of other BRICS countries, and welcomed their counterparts investing in the Chinese market.
"The BRICS and Africa should be closely integrated and promote
Xi also called for regular meetings among BRICS leaders, and urged them to listen to the BRICS Business Council, which was established during the two-day summit and will be a chief mechanism for dialogue among member countries.
The council will operate under five representatives from each member country, all on equal footing, and will operate without a fixed leadership structure.
"It will be similar to the World Trade Organization only on a smaller scale, and it will aim to resolve trade and commercial disputes," said
"It can also act as an administrative body if a Free Trade Zone is established under a BRICS mechanism," he added.
The summit also witnessed the signing of agreements on financing for a green economy and infrastructure in
In addition, a new consensus was reached in the founding of a common development bank, which aims to provide credit support for infrastructure projects, though details on funding and location of the proposed bank have not been disclosed.
"We have decided to enter formal negotiations to establish a BRICS new development bank based on our own considerable infrastructure needs, which amounts to around $4.5 trillion over the next 5 years, but also to cooperate with our emerging market in developing countries in the future," said South African President Jacob Zuma.
The five countries also announced that they are mulling over a $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement among BRICS countries, asking their finance ministers and central bank governors to continue working towards the establishment.
The arrangement will have a positive precautionary effect, guard the BRICS short-term liquidity pressures, and enhance financial stability, complement existing international arrangements as an additional line of defense, said the Durban Declaration announced at the summit.
Nicola Casarini, a research fellow at the EU Institute for Security Studies, said
"But the sound development of the BRICS forum still depends on benign interplay with other mechanisms such as G20, and should serve as a supplement instead of a replacement," said Yu Jianhua, a scholar on International relations at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Such an agreement could start with the coordination foreign exchange mechanisms, followed by common tariffs and eventually trade settlement in a single currency.
In addition, Cao suggested, the future cooperation mechanism shouldn't necessarily be constrained by the concept invented by Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, but should look at introducing more countries.
"The level of inter-regional investment remains low," said Feng Shaolei, an expert on Russian studies at