Fortaleza (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A development bank and a common emergency fund for BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is the historic agreement reached yesterday evening by the five leaders at a summit held in Fortaleza, Brazil.
The headquarters will be in Shanghai, China, and India will be the first president. The objective is to enhance the growth of their respective countries, providing alternative sources of funding to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
BRICS - said the Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov
- have chosen Shanghai
for the headquarters because the city offers the best infrastructure
and draws large investors. The first president of the Board of Governors will be Russian, and the first president of the Board of Directors
will be Brazilian. The regional center for the African continent will
be created in South Africa,.
The development bank will have an initial capital of $ 50 billion - extendable to 100 billion - which
divided equally among all nations, to prevent one having power over another. The
emergency fund (Contingent
Reserve Arrangement) will have a capital of 100 billion dollars, to which member countries will be able to access in case of crisis.
The Fortaleza summit was also the first occasion in which the Chinese president Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi,
the new prime minister of India,
met face to face. On Twitter, Modi wrote: "I had
a very fruitful meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. We discussed various
issues."