The five founding member countries of the BRICS, [1] created in 2011, are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. They account for 27% of global GDP, 20% of global exports, 20% of global oil production and 41% of the world’s population.
Furthermore, at the summit in August 2023, it was announced that the BRICS group would be enlarged, and the acronym of the enlarged group changed to BRICS+. Six more countries were to join: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Argentina. Finally, following the election of Javier Milei in November 2023, Argentina withdrew. If we add the five new members to calculate the weight of the BRICS+, the big change compared with the previous situation concerns oil production. The BRICS+ accounts for 42% of world oil production and 51% of greenhouse gas emissions. A few more figures: the BRICS+ account for 29% of world GDP, 25% of world exports and 45% of the world’s population.
- There has been talk for years about the possibility of the BRICS launching a new currency. What’s the latest?
Despite hopes that such a measure will be on the agenda of the next BRICS summit, to be held in 2024 in Kazan (capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, part of the Russian Federation) under the Russian presidency of Vladimir Putin, the creation of a common BRICS currency was not included in the final declaration adopted at the BRICS summit held in August 2023 in South Africa. [2] It is true that in his closing speech at the summit, the Brazilian President announced that the BRICS had spoken in favour of a “working group to study a reference currency for BRICS.” [3] He also declared, “the creation of a currency for trade and investment transactions between BRICS members increases our payment options and reduces our vulnerabilities.” [4]
The Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista, who represented Brazil at the IMF from 2007 to 2015 under President Lula, and who was then vice-president of the New Development Bank (created by the BRICS) from 2015 to 2017, is among those hoping that the creation of a BRICS currency will be on the agenda at the 16th BRICS summit. In a communication dated October 2023, Paulo Nogueira Batista said:
“President Putin himself, as well as President Lula, have often spoken of de-dollarization and the possible creation of a common or reference currency for the BRICS. Since at least 2022, Russian experts have been working on the topic. The reason Russia is the originator of the idea is quite clear”. [5]
Of course, Nogueira alludes to the sanctions Russia has been under since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and especially since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Paulo Nogueira Batista goes on to summarise some of the progress made and the many obstacles encountered and concludes :
“It is our good luck to have Russia presiding over the BRICS in 2024 and Brazil, in 2025 – precisely the two countries that seem to be most interested in moving towards the creation of a common or reference currency. If everything runs smoothly, the BRICS may be able to decide to create a currency at the Summit in Russia next year. By the Summit in Brazil, in 2025, the BRICS will perhaps be able to announce the first steps towards its establishment.” [6]
But there are other voices. Neoliberal economist, Lesetja Kganyago, Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, is far less optimistic than Paulo Nogueira. Here is what William Gumede wrote in Business Day newspaper on 21 August 2023, at the time of the BRICS summit:
“Kganyago has cautioned over the practicality of establishing a common currency in a trade bloc in which the members are spread over vastly different geographical locations. The success of the euro, the common currency of the EU, has been partially based on geographical proximity, similarity in economic and political institutions and regimes, and individual economies giving up their national currencies.A BRICS currency will also require a BRICS central bank, commonality in monetary policy, alignment of fiscal policies, and synergy between political regimes across the trade bloc. Yet as things stand the BRICS currencies have mismatched central banking regimes and are not easily convertible — unlike the EU when the euro was established. China and Russia’s central banks are also state-controlled, whereas SA, India and Brazil have independent central banks. A big question is whether China or Russia would surrender sovereignty over their national currencies, which would be crucial to the success of a common currency. “ [7]
We might add that it is hard to imagine India under Narendra Modi, who is likely to win the elections in May 2024, coming into conflict with the United States by endorsing the roll-out of a common currency, especially since Sino-Indian economic and military confrontations continue. Confronted with China, India is strengthening its relations with Israel, Washington, Australia and Japan, while supporting Russia in selling its oil and remaining a member of the BRICS. As Kganyago pointed out, India is keen to retain sovereignty over its currency. The same is true of Brazil, as monetary sovereignty enables both countries to maintain or strengthen their influence in their traditional areas of economic influence — Brazil with its neighbouring economies: Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, etc. and India with Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, etc.
I feel it is more crucial to assess what is currently in place than to speculate on the likelihood of a common BRICS currency materialising someday. What is certain is that, beyond the rhetoric of the Russian and Brazilian representatives, in practice, there has been no progress to date in setting up a common currency.
The NDB was officially created on 15 July 2014 on the occasion of the 6th BRICS Summit held in Fortaleza, Brazil. The NDB granted its first loans at the end of 2016. The five founding countries each have an equal share of the Bank’s capital, and none has veto rights. In addition to the five founding countries, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt are also members of the NDB. [8] Uruguay is in the process of making its membership effective. The NDB has a capital of 50 billion dollars, which should be increased to 100 billion dollars in the future. The position of Chairman of the NDB is rotated. Each country has the right to hold the presidency in turn for a 5-year term. Dilma Rousseff, the current president, is Brazilian, and the next president will be Russian and will be appointed in 2025 by Vladimir Putin, who has just been re-elected president of the Russian Federation until 2030. The New Development Bank has announced that it will focus primarily on financing infrastructure projects, including water distribution systems and renewable energy production systems. It insists on the “green” nature of the projects it finances, although this is highly debatable.
The Shanghai-based New Development Bank, in which Moscow is a shareholder, is complying with the sanctions against Russia and has not granted any loans to the country since 2021
In view of his responsibilities as Brazil’s representative at the IMF and subsequently as vice-president of the New Development Bank (NDB), it is worth publishing a large extract from Paulo Nogueira Batista’s comments on the new bank created by the BRICS:
“The Bank has yet to make a difference. One reason is, frankly, the type of people we have sent to Shanghai since 2015 as Presidents and Vice Presidents of the institution. Brazil, for instance, during the Bolsonaro administration, sent a weak person to become President from mid-2020 to early 2023 – technically weak, Western-oriented, with no leadership, and without a clue as to how to conduct a geopolitical initiative. Russia is also no exception, unfortunately – the Russian Vice President is remarkably unfit for the job. As the saying goes, rot begins at the top. Weak Management has often led to poor hiring of staff.These internal problems of the Bank were compounded by broader political hurdles, among which tense relations between China and India, the sanctions imposed on Russia since 2014 and, especially, since 2022, as well as the political crises in Brazil and South Africa. These macropolitical issues within and among the founding members have also hurt the NDB.Brazil has now sent Dilma Rousseff, a former President of Brazil, to become President of the institution. She has, however, less than two years to turn around the Bank. Not enough time. Thus, the future of the NDB lies largely in the hands of Russia. This is because Russia will have the opportunity to appoint a new president for 5 years, starting July 2025. I hope Russia will this time be able to send a strong person for the job, someone of high political standing, technically sound, and with a clear view of the geopolitical purposes that led the BRICS to create the NDB.” [9]
Paulo Nogueira’s hopes that Russia will give the NDB much greater strength from 2025 onwards need to be qualified by two major factors. Firstly, developments in the war in Ukraine and the international sanctions imposed on Russia by North America, Western Europe and Japan. Secondly, the NDB’s decision on 4 March 2022 to stop granting loans to Russia. The NDB has chosen to respect the sanctions by Washington’s partners and has refrained from granting new loans to Russia due to fears of a credit rating downgrade, since nearly 7% of NDB liabilities are in Russia (the downgrade by New York rating agencies did indeed transpire in mid-2022). This can be verified on the NDB website under the section, All Projects and in particular under all projects in Russia where it can be seen that the last project financed by the NDB in Russia dates back to 2021.
Getting back to Paulo Nogueira’s assessment of the NDB’s weakness:
“Why can it be said that the NDB was disappointing so far? Here are some of the reasons why. Disbursements have been strikingly slow, projects are approved but are not transformed into contracts. When contracts are signed, actual project implementation is slow. Results on the ground are meager. Operations – funding and lending – are done mainly in US dollars, the currency which also serves as the Bank’s unit of account.”
The New Development Bank lends mainly in dollars
How can we, as BRICS, credibly talk about de-dollarization if our main financial initiative remains predominantly dollarized? Don’t tell me that operations in national currencies cannot be done in our countries. The Interamerican Development Bank, the IDB, for instance, has had for many years considerable experience in operating in Brazilian currency. Why the NDB has not tapped into that experience beats me. One can expect Dilma Rousseff to start solving these problems.The NDB is also far from being the global bank we envisaged at the time of its creation. Only three new countries have joined the Bank after more than eight years of existence – Compared with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the AIIB, led by China, was established more or less at the same time as the NDB, which has had more than 100 countries members for some time. Furthermore, governance in the NDB is poor, rules are not respected by the management. The Board is ineffective. Transparency is not observed, the Bank is opaque, and little information about loans and projects is made public. HR is weak. Many important positions in the Bank remain unfilled, discouragement among employees is rife leading to staff departures, and thus the total number of staff is falling.” [10]
This highly critical observation does not come from an enemy of the BRICS, but from a committed supporter of the vital need to bolster BRICS initiatives.
It is worth noting that in April 2023, the NDB’s most recent borrowing on the financial markets took the form of US dollar bonds [11] rather than the renminbi as was the case at the very start of the bank’s activities. This is further proof that the NDB’s practices and the BRICS strategy are not in line with the stated aim of resolutely reducing the role of the dollar in international trade. For the years 2020-2021, 75% of the NDB’s borrowings were in US dollars. The NDB management has announced that it will reduce its dollar borrowing and lending in the future, to 70% of assets and liabilities by 2030 (an unambitious target). This remains to be seen.
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Author: stuartbramhall
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