The Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that it still hopes to create a “cross-border payment infrastructure” for the BRICS economic bloc — a system that would allow BRICS to undermine the American dollar as the favored medium of international trade.
According to the ministry statement, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stressed the new initiative, along with “the New Investment Program and the BRICS Grain Exchange” during a meeting of BRICS member nations in India.
The Russians said all participants in the meeting “voiced support of further strengthening interaction in the BRICS format on international platforms” during a time of “growing challenges to multilateralism,” which was most likely meant as an oblique reference to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
BRICS is an economic bloc established in 2009. Its name refers to the first five members: Brazil Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Six new members joined in 2023, including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ethiopia, and Argentina, and more non-voting “partner” nations have been added since.
The BRICS nations are theoretically “emerging economies,” though few of them would meet any reasonable definition of that term today. For instance, China is the second-largest economy in the world and India is a fast-growing industrial powerhouse.
India currently holds the rotating chair of BRICS and accordingly held its first meeting of “Sherpas and Sous-Sherpas” (as the representatives of member nations are styled) in New Delhi this week.
BRICS has been talking about creating a dollar-free financial system for years, although enthusiasm among the member states for such a project varies widely. Ryabkov conceded on Monday that getting them all to agree on such an audacious undertaking was extremely difficult.
“A great deal depends on the chairmanship,” he said, which might have been taken as a veiled jab at India for having other priorities. India has always been cautious about the alternative currency project as it hopes to preserve good relations with both Russia and the United States.
“We know there are different nuances and approaches, and the situation is changing in many ways. BRICS has established itself as a union of like-minded countries, but any group of like-minded countries still has nuances and specific features of national approaches,” Ryabkov said.
“We do not always have ready answers to these questions about how to bring them together and bring them to a common denominator. We will continue to work on this,” he concluded.
The current plan for BRICS is to create a system of “interoperable central bank digital currencies,” a far less provocative goal that creating a unique “BRICS currency” or de-dollarizing.
Interoperable digital currencies would make it easier for member states to conduct trade using the electronic versions of their own various currencies, but it would not completely replace the U.S. dollar or require BRICS member states to fuse their currencies together in a way that some would find objectionable. The more modest goal also allays the fears of some BRICS members that a unique common currency would end up dominated and controlled by China.
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