'A long term vision for BRICS' released

Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs and India's Sherpa to BRICS, Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty, today released the report "A Long Term Vision for BRICS", produced by Observer Research Foundation (ORF).

This report, which had incorporated the first round of feedback received from within the Track II network, was submitted to the 5th BRICS Academic Forum this year in South Africa.

ORF is a member of the BRICS Think Tanks Council set up by the leaders at the BRICS Summit in Durban in March this year.

The BRICS long term vision report includes five prominent agendas of cooperation and collaboration which are integral to the very idea of long term engagement between the BRICS nations and provide a framework for accelerating momentum and increasing significance over the long term.

Reform of global, political and economic governance institutions is the centrepiece of the BRICS agenda. Multilateral leverage, furthering market integration, intra-BRICS development platform and sharing of indigenous and development knowledge and innovation experiences across key sectors are the other thrust areas envisioned in the report.

Releasing the report, Mr. Chakravarty said the five countries may follow some of the recommendations to share indigenous and development knowledge and innovation experiences across key sectors.

"There is a lot to learn from each other and develop a high level of cooperation in select areas in BRICS as well as contribute collective capabilities to the global discourse," Mr Chakravarty said.

He said while it is true that the international governance architecture requires a significant overhaul, there is a lot of work to be done domestically and among BRICS members as well.

Mr Dinesh Bhatia, Joint Secretary, MEA, noted that even Mr Jim O Neill of Goldman Sachs fame and credited with first deploying the BRIC acronym, has also commented on the report. Mr Neill has also emphasised that global governance must become more plural, with the BRICS playing a commensurately larger role.

Mr. Samir Saran, lead author and Vice President, ORF, said there is an urgent need for the five BRICS countries, which constitute around 40 percent of the world population and responsible for about half of the global growth, "need to sit on the same table and discuss and frame rules for the new road".