BRICS can together help out in global post-Covid recovery: PM Modi

'Covid impact on global economy less severe than before, but effects lingering'

Mutual cooperation between the BRICS nations could help in global recovery after the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the virtual BRICS summit on Thursday. The nations in the bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) had a similar approach to global economic governance in the aftermath of the pandemic, he said. “The impact of Covid on the global economy is less severe than before, but the effects are still lingering. Our mutual cooperation can make a useful contribution to the global post-Covid recovery,” he said.

Among those attending the summit were Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The summit is being hosted by China as the chair for this year.

Modi did not comment on the challenges for the global economy on account of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on global inflation and supply chain disruptions. BRICS brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade.

Modi said the structural changes undertaken by BRICS in the past few years increased the influence of the grouping, adding that it was a matter of happiness that membership of the New Development Bank (NDB) had increased.

“I am confident that our deliberations today will produce suggestions to further strengthen our ties,” he said.

Modi spoke at the BRICS Business Forum on Wednesday, where he said India’s real gross domestic product was set to grow by 7.5 per cent in the current financial year (FY23), which would make it the fastest-growing major economy in the world, and that India’s digital economy was set to cross $1 trillion by 2025.

Modi had said the government had brought about transformative changes to enable technology-led growth in sectors such as space, new economy, green energy, data and others. He added that steps were taken by the Centre even during the pandemic to improve ease of doing business by reducing compliance burden on companies. He invited attending businesses from BRICS nations to invest in India’s $1.5-trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline.