NDB biggest accomplishment by BRICS

GLOBAL Spotlight

SOUTH Africa is just five weeks away from hosting the BRICS summit in Johannesburg with the leaders of the most important emerging economies.

If the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting held in Pretoria is anything to go by, there will be a lot more to discuss than mere trade, investment and development financing.

It seems the ministers may actually want to align their foreign policies on certain issues of international concern, which will serve as a counterbalance to the unilateralism of the US administration.

The very fact that the BRICS envoys (deputy ministers) on the Middle East and North Africa will be meeting this week in Durban to grapple with burgeoning international crises in this complex region is indicative of attempts to develop a common political approach to critical situations.

The days of sidelining the emerging economies in global politics is surely over. Together Brazil,

Russia, India, China and South Africa are finding their collective political power, and are even expanding the grouping to the “BRICS Plus” to broaden the power base BRICS yields.

BRICS could potentially expand its formal membership in the foreseeable future, bringing in African and other powerhouses.

This means that we need to capitalise on our position as the only current African partner to drive a progressive agenda in keeping with the AU’S priorities.

BRICS has a great deal to show for its decade of partnership, and perhaps one of the most important accomplishments to date has Africa’s throughput goes by way of the Durban port, but its lack of capacity is a key inhibitor of gross domestic product growth.

While Transnet is fully owned by the state, the government is not underwriting the loan because it is being made directly to Transnet in an effort to reduce the number of sovereign guarantees.

Similar loans are being approved for other BRICS countries, such as a $200m loan to the state oil company in Brazil Petrobras, to improve its environmental footprint.

The loan is not being underwritten by the Brazilian government. It is intended to assist Petrobras in complying with new environmental regulatory requirements, through the upgrading of the infrastructure of two existing refineries with the objectives of reducing harmful emissions and preventing water and soil contamination.

The NDB has already proven that it is helping to fill an important gap in the global development finance architecture, as financing for infrastructure development is limited, despite growing demand.

Infrastructure is Africa’s top priority, and the infrastructure build across the continent will help to reverse the low levels of intra-regional economic exchange, thereby increasing Africa’s share of global trade. Such developments are indicative of the real relevance of BRICS for emerging economies today.

At the end of the day, BRICS has become the main engine driving world economic growth. Together the countries contribute to half of the world’s economic growth, which exceeds the contribution of all developed countries combined.