In News:

• Prior to the BRICS Summit, PM Modi participated, by way of a recorded keynote speech, in the Opening Ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum.

What’s in Today’s Article:

• BRICS – About, timeline, New Development Bank, role of BRICS, challenges
• News Summary

BRICS

• BRICS brings together 5 major emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
• BRICS as a platform comprises 41% of the world population, has 24% of the world GDP and over 16% share in the world trade.

Timeline

New Development Bank (NDB)

• NDB, also known as BRICS bank, was launched in 2015.
• NDB has initiated its membership expansion and started formal negotiations with prospective members in late 2020.
• In September 2021, NDB admitted the UAE , Uruguay and Bangladesh as the first batch of new members.

Role of BRICS: An Analysis

• New Development Bank and the Contingency Reserve Arrangement are actually the flagship outcome of BRICS.
• BRICS which started off primarily with an economic pillar, has now diversified considerably to include security, health, science and technology, culture and civil society.
• Role of BRICS has also been very important in the context of being a pressure group on the question of reform of multilateralism and also on the question of reform of global governance institutions.
• BRICS sees itself as a bridge between developing countries and developed world and takes up issues which are very relevant to the developing countries.

Challenges Faced by BRICS

News Summary

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the meeting of the BRICS Business Forum held in virtual format.
• The BRICS Business Forum meeting was held ahead of 14th summit of BRICS nations.
  • The 14th summit of BRICS nations will be held in Beijing in Virtual format.

Key Highlights:

Russian President’s remark

• In the first three months of 2022, trade between the Russian Federation and the BRICS countries increased by 38% and reached $45 billion.
• Contacts between Russian business circles and the business community of the BRICS countries have intensified.
• g., negotiations are under way to open Indian chain stores in Russia, increase the share of Chinese cars, equipment and hardware on Russian market.
• Russian President hailed India’s decision to import more oil from Russia.
  • Although this has led to friction in India’s ties with Western countries, including the US.
  • It should be noted that Russian oil accounts for no more than 2% of its total oil imports of India.

Remark of Indian PM

• Proposals made
  • PM Modi proposed that the BRICS Business Forum may develop a platform for regular exchanges between start-ups in BRICS countries.
  • He also called for a dialogue on innovation-led economic recovery.
• India as fastest growing major economy
  • PM Modi said that this year, India is expecting 7.5% growth, which makes it the fastest growing major economy.
  • Transformative changes are taking place in every sector in the emerging New India.
  • Key pillar of India’s current economic recovery is technology-led growth.
• India is supporting innovation in every sector
  • India has made innovation-friendly policies in many areas like space, blue economy, green hydrogen, clean energy, drones, geo-spatial data.
  • India has one of the best eco-systems in the world for innovation, which is reflected in the growing number of Indian start-ups.
  • There are more than 100 unicorns in over 70,000 start-ups in India, and their number continues to grow
• Indian digital economy is growing in size
  • The value of the Indian digital economy will reach 1 trillion dollars by 2025.
  • The growth of the digital sector also encouraged the participation of women in the workforce.
    • There are approximately 36 % women out of 4.4 million professionals working in our IT sector.
    • The maximum benefit from Technology-based financial inclusion has also been gone to the women in India’s rural areas.
  • He invited BRICS Women Business Alliance to undertake study in this transformative change in India.
• Efforts to improve the ease of doing business
  • PM Modi highlighted the fact that even during the pandemic, India continued to make many efforts to improve the ease of doing business.
  • Thousands of rules have been changed to reduce the compliance burden on the business.
  • The work is going on at a massive scale to bring in more transparency and consistency in government policies and procedures.
• Improved infrastructure in India
  • He said infrastructure in India is also being improved on a large scale, and its expansion is also taking place.
  • For the same, India has prepared a National Master Plan.
  • There are investment opportunities of $1.5 trillion under our National Infrastructure Pipeline.