Russia expects to launch the $100-billion BRICS New Development Bank along with a currency reserve pool worth another $100 billion at the July summit in Ufa, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We expect to reach agreement in Ufa on the launch of practical operations of the BRICS Bank and a pool of currency reserves,” Putin said on Thursday at a ceremony to receive the credentials of ambassadors of foreign states, TASS reports.
Putin recalled that the BRICS was created in 2006 under Russia’s initiative, and that the group “has already become an influential factor in world policy and economy.”
“Russia is interested in further intensifying cooperation between the BRICS countries and developing new interaction mechanisms, including in the financial and economic sphere,” he said.
An additional impulse would be given in the next days “to the development of inter-parliamentary relations, humanitarian and information cooperation, the intensification of contacts between trade unions and non-governmental organizations,” he added.
The agreement on the establishment of the New Development bank was signed by the BRICS countries in July 2014. The bank seen as rival to the existing US-led institutions, the IMF and World Bank, will finance infrastructure projects and ensure the sustainable development of the group and other developing countries.
President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce Sergey Katyrin took over the chairmanship of a business council of BRICS, an economic association made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, on April 1.