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BRICS leaders vow to revive growth
CAVELOSSIM (GOA): The world’s five largest emerging economies committed themselves to reviving global growth at the BRICS summit in Goa on Sunday.
CAVELOSSIM (GOA): The world’s five largest emerging economies committed themselves to reviving global growth at the BRICS summit in Goa on Sunday.
However, the five members failed to reach consensus on signing two crucial agreements — one to create a BRICS credit rating agency and the other on cooperation between their export-import banks and the New Development Bank (NDB).
“We reiterate our determination to use all policy tools — monetary, fiscal, and structural, individually and collectively — to achieve the goal of strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth,” the five countries pledged in their Goa Declaration. “Monetary policy will continue to support the economic activity and ensure price stability, consistent with central banks’ mandates.”
The BRICS summit was held at the Taj Exotica hotel overlooking Benaulim beach in Goa. Presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the summit was attended by the heads of government from the four other member states: presidents Michel Temer of Brazil, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China and Jacob Zuma of South Africa.
The five nations, however, contended that monetary policy alone cannot lead to balanced and sustainable growth and stressed the role of structural reforms.
“We emphasise that our fiscal policies are equally important to support our common growth objectives. We also take note that the spillover effects of certain policy measures in some systemically important, advanced economies can have adverse impact on growth prospects of emerging economies,” the declaration stated. The leaders noted that they were meeting at a time when global economic recovery is progressing with improved resilience and the emergence of new sources of growth.
“The growth, though, is weaker than expected with downside risks to the global economy continuing to persist. This gets reflected in a variety of challenges including commodity price volatility, weak trade, high private and public indebtedness, inequality and lack of inclusiveness of economic growth,” they added.
On the proposed BRICS credit rating agency, the Declaration said experts from the grouping will explore the possibility of setting up one based on market-oriented principles to strengthen the global governance architecture.
The BRICS leaders did not sign an agreement on the proposed agency as they thought it needs more consultations among experts, said Amar Sinha, secretary of economic relations in the ministry of external affairs.
