BRIC nations demand a fairer world order

The first summit of the BRIC countries today ended with the call for a “fairer” world order to be created through a new international monetary system — stable, predictable and more diversified — reform of international financial institutions, and a more efficient United Nations that will give a greater role to India.

The finance ministries and central banks of the four countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — will meet and work out proposals for a new global financial order. This would guarantee safety and security of their people, including food and energy security.

“We want a fairer world order… All important decisions, economic or political, should be taken on a fairer basis,” Dmitry Medvedev, president of Russia, the host country, said after the meeting ended in Yekaterinburg, in the Ural region.

Medvedev was the only one who spoke to the media; the other three — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva — sat quietly alongside him on the dais.

The joint statement of the leaders said the emerging and developing economies must have greater voice and representation in international financial institutions, whose heads and senior leadership should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based process.

Expressing the BRIC states’ commitment to multilateral diplomacy with the UN playing the central role, the joint statement underlined the need for a comprehensive reform of the UN to make it more efficient. “We reiterate the importance we attach to the status of India and Brazil in international affairs, and understand and support their aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations,” the statement said.

According to the text of Singh’s opening remarks at the plenary session of the BRIC summit, issued soon after Medvedev finished speaking and the four of them left, the Prime Minister recalled what transpired at the second G-20 leaders’ summit in London in April. The summit agreed on several short-term measures to infuse greater liquidity, make good the decline that had taken place in capital flows to developing countries by providing adequate resources to international financial institutions, and agreed on a broad direction for improvement in the regulatory and supervisory structure for the global financial system.

The G-20 leaders recognised the need to redefine the role of institutions of global economic and financial governance.

“The important issue today is to implement the decisions that we have taken. Finance ministers and central bank representatives of BRIC countries have met and identified the areas where our efforts should be focused. Our countries should also keep in contact with each other in the run-up to the next G-20 leaders’ summit in Pittsburgh,” Singh said.

The next BRIC summit will be held in Brazil next year.