Achievements made by Business Council, NDB show potential of BRICS cooperation: Jinping

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday said the achievements made by the Business Council and the New Development Bank (NDB) have demonstrated the vitality and potential of BRICS cooperation.

"We were pleased to learn that both institutions have made important progress in their work. The Business Council has carried out lot of work in areas of E commerce, skill development, and experience sharing on development economy which have produced good results. The new development bank is steadily advancing the implementation of new projects.," Xi said while speaking at BRICS leaders dialogue with BRICS Business Council in Xiamen.

He noted that the NDB was making a new progress in business cooperation and institutional building.

"At present the Global economic growth is showing signs of improvement. However, risk and uncertainties .We five countries face both opportunities and challenges for enhancing pragmatic economic cooperation and importance and urgency of such cooperation is both on rise," he said.

Asserting that 2017 is an important year for BRICS cooperation, Xi said that BRICS leaders today viewed the experience of BRICS cooperation over the past decade and agreed to take this cooperation to a new height.

Speaking at the event, South African President Jacob Zuma called for establishment of an experience shared mechanism for the digital economy.

"We should establish experience sharing mechanism for the digital economy, this would enable us to accelerate the economic development and productivity of existing industries and cultivating markets and industries while enabling us to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth," he said.

"We look forward to our continent hosting the 10th BRICS summit in 2018. We want to be able to build on the endeavors of our business council. We look forward to working with BRICS business council further to ensure deeper economic cooperation within the BRICS council." he added.

Brazilian President Michel Temer hailed the efforts of the Business Council for making the BRICS an effective instrument to increase the ever more trade and investment amongst the countries.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday pitched for more expanding business cooperation between member countries at the BRICS Business Council Summit in Xiamen, China, while mentioning that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is India's biggest economic reform.

Prime Minister Modi said that India was changing fast into one of the most open economies in the world with FDI inflows at an all-time high, rising by 40 percent.

"The Goods and Services Tax is India's biggest economic reform ever. In one stroke, a unified market of 1.3 billion people has been created," he said

"Programs like digital India, make in India and start-up India are changing the economic landscape of the country know; There are assisting India turn into a knowledge base ,skill supported and technology driven society" PM Modi added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said direct dialogue between the BRICS leadership and the private sector is highly relevant and allows the grouping to discuss at length issues of economic cooperation.

Hailing the successful implementation of this dialogue, Putin said, "The results are obvious since the establishment of our association the inter-BRICS trade has risen by over 50 percent, and as of 2016, it amounted to 235 USD billion."

"BRICS is facing an important task to join hands to give more impetus to mutual exchanges, not only in trade and investment finance, but also in science and technology . The initiative and contribution of the BRICS business council in implementing the BRICS economic partnership strategy that was adopted during the Russian presidency at the Ufa ummit 2015 ," Russian President said.

Earlier, leaders of the BRICS countries applauded both the institutions the BRICS Business council and the New Development Bank that will contribute more for strengthening the cooperation and development of five countries.

The three-day BRICS summit in China's Xiamen kicked off on Sunday. The event is being held in a new so-called BRICS Plus format, with leaders of such non-BRICS countries as Egypt, Mexico, Thailand, Guinea and Tajikistan also taking part in the summit alongside the leaders of the five BRICS nations: Russia, China, Brazil, South Africa and India.