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The first summit meeting of the so-called BRIC group — Brazil, Russia, India and China — was intended to underscore the rising economic clout of these four major developing countries and their demand for a greater voice in the world. And Russia, the group’s host and ideological provocateur, was especially interested in using the summit to fire a shot across Washington’s bow.
Shortly before the BRIC summit opened, a senior Kremlin economic adviser told reporters that Russia was considering moving some of its currency reserves out of dollars and into bonds issued by the other three BRIC countries.
“The issue is that the system of managing these institutions must be more fair and reflect the weights of the countries in the global economy more correctly,” Arkady Dvorkovich said.
All four countries have expressed varying degrees of discomfort with Washington’s financial stewardship, and are particularly concerned about the value of the dollar at a time of rapidly mounting indebtedness in the United States. At the same time, most economists say the BRIC countries can do little to change the current architecture of the global financial system, and that the outcome of this meeting will be largely symbolic. (The New York Times)
