Stacey Vanek Smith: Now for the global perspective on business and economics. A group of emerging market countries gathered in New Delhi for a summit today. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, known as BRICS came together to discuss economic stability and their relationship with developed nations.
The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder is right outside the summit this morning. Good morning.
Sanjoy Majumder: Good morning.
Smith: The BRICS nations came out today blaming rich countries for the economic turmoil. What was the reasoning behind this?
Majumder: Well these are countries that together contribute to about 20 percent of the global economy and there’s an increasing sense that events that are well beyond their control are shaping their lives and their economies given that they have very large populations who need food and access to energy such as oil and gas, they’re quite concerned.
Smith: What are the BRICS countries calling for out of this summit?
Majumder: There’re looking for ways to try and put in place systems which allow them to work outside of the current global financial system so they’ve decided to try and set up a lending bank of their own, modeled along the lines of the World Bank but also lend money in times of need. And they’re also trying to set up systems where they can trade in each other’s currency and not use the dollar as a unit of trade.
Smith: Can the BRICS countries get what they want from developed countries? Do they have any bargaining power here?
Majumder: Well I think there’s a great sense that these are five very influential countries mainly because of the size of their economies and the size of their markets so they do have some bargaining power there. Having said that, the problem with the BRICS has always been, they’re fairly disparate nations with varying political and economic situations and often competing with each other. So while they may come together on a platform such as the BRICS, there’s a sense very much that there’s not much they can do beyond this.
Smith: The BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder is covering the summit in New Delhi. Sanjoy, thank you.
Majumder: Thank you.
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