Mikhail Golovnin, Director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the BRICS National Research Committee, and Vladimir Davydov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Scientific Council of the BRICS National Research Committee and Scientific Director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke at the discussion in Moscow.
The discussion was joined online by Carlos Frederico Coelho, Senior Researcher at the BRICS Policy Centre; Binod Singh Ajatshatru, Director of the BRICS Institute of India in New Delhi; and Zhang Xin, Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations and Deputy Director of the Centre for Russian Studies at East China Normal University.
Carlos Frederico Coelho noted the obvious economic and political strength of the association: “The BRICS countries have consistently emphasised the idea that they want to balance the international order and the economic system that formed after World War II. Naturally, this is a very ambitious project, and realisation will take many years. It will require enormous political will. I think we can conclude that this political will exists, and the BRICS countries want to build a more multipolar world.”
Mr Coelho noted that the inclusion of Argentina in the BRICS group was of great importance for Brazil: “Of course, Argentina is Brazil’s main trading partner in Latin America. Argentina has had great difficulties in accessing dollar capital markets over the past 25 years. From Brazil's point of view, Argentina is a very important country. We could streamline our monetary and currency relations.”
Commenting on the issue of a potential BRICS currency and the development of the digitalisation processes, Mikhail Golovnin had the following to say: “All BRICS countries are planning to introduce central bank digital currencies, CBDCs. And within the framework of these CBDCs there are projects for multilateral digital currencies, aka Multi-CBDC.” The expert cited projects such as mBridge which includes China and the UAE, and Project Dunbar with South Africa. “The central problem is not the currency as such, but the organisation of payments and settlements to bypass the monopoly mechanisms that are controlled by the leading developed countries,” Golovnin noted.
Vladimir Davydov described the last summit as a breakthrough: “Recent years, in general, have been periods of low activity on the part of BRICS in the international arena and in bilateral relations between the members of this association.” The expert stressed that the civilisational representativeness of the BRICS countries has significantly increased, and the accession of new Muslim countries professing Sunni and Shiite Islam will allow, among other things, a serious increase in the resource base of the New Development Bank. Davydov urged not to fear the growing diversity of the association: “We need to create a situation – and I hope it will be created eventually – where consensus does not become an obstacle to resolving strategic problems.”
Commenting on the economic aspect of cooperation within the BRICS framework, Binod Singh Ajatshatru had the following to say: “It is time to carry out transactions in our own national currencies, albeit in a small volume, but nevertheless. We must create an integrated transaction system that will function within the BRICS framework, uniting China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa.” The expert pointed out that the BRICS members need to be prepared for the Western structures to make efforts to sabotage BRICS initiatives.
Zhang Xin stressed that BRICS was going through a crucial stage of development, becoming a significant international organisation and the voice of the collective south: “The most important part of BRICS is that the potential of this association and its foundations are very different from a number of other international organisations. BRICS countries are united not by a common cultural or religious context which has its strengths and weaknesses, but it is a very flexible and heterogeneous organisation, and it has its own diverse agenda.”
