India’s World-11^th BRICS SUMMIT-The theme of the 2019 BRICS summit is”Economic Growth for an Innovative Future.” The Summit ended with adoption of Brasilia Declaration.

1.The eleventh summit of BRICS comprising of Brazil, the Russian federation. India, China and South Africa has been held recently in Brazil. The grouping represents about half of the world’s population and has a combined GDP of more than 16 trillion US dollars. While economic growth and innovative future are the focused areas for this summit, Leaders of the five nations  also discussed fight against organised crime, Counter-terrorism, money laundering, scientific and technical co-operation as well as digital economy.

2.Why BRICS is so significant?

• The idea which started from and investment banker has now evolved and with South Africa joining later this comprises of economies  which are going to dominate the world economy by 2040 and all of them are non-western economies.
• Five BRICS countries were actually the non G7 countries who were still important in G20
• Chinese economy is growing around 6 per cent. Indian economy still growing on 5% plus but if we look at other three economies they are doing pretty badly. Russia is growing 1% to growth, Brazil and South Africa less than 1% and in fact in the last 20 years economies of Brazil, South Africa and Russia have actually declined than what they were. But at the same time it is not just a pure economics, because there is also geo-political angel.
• Now all these countries have different political systems, they also have different priorities but on certain issues still they come together. They want to form certain Non-western norms, new agenda settings, etc.
• Two important reports will be submitted at a summit- one is the report of New Development popularly calls the BRICS bank and second is the report of the BRICS Business alliance
• The BRICS countries have among them only 17% of world trade which needs improvement. Therefore the BRICS Business Alliance really needs to look at what can be done in between large economies who arrange complimentary to open door but then come on to the same wall, for example what will India and China do together.
• Similarly on the New development bank has been a positive thing but has it achieved as much as we anticipated. It has limitations it was only supposed to lend to  the same five countries whereas the AIIB which China setup has a far bigger reach.

Therefore that banks role and how it can be speeded up is something which we would to look at very closely in the summit.

3.Geo-Political Perspective

• Although BRICS started as an Economic idea, it is now becoming a coordination play for economic issues- Two most important ones are the, Co-ordiantion on Terrorism and the second is Co-ordination on Reformed Multilaterlism. Geo-Politics has also become an important part of BRICS.
• Still it is majorly an economic grouping . In bout all the 30 sectoral meeting most of them are actually about economics -you look at energy, you look at climatic change, you look at so many other aspects like technology, science and technology, now so many are the new issues come etc. These are economic issues.

4.Key issues

• Among Major issues is the issue of  Climatic Change in where all countries are like India and China are playing very important role and that of Terrorism.
• The  issue of international global development architecture because India and China and even Brazil and South Africa  are  becoming very significant players -they are providing development assistant to different countries, so they can really contribute something to the norms building because they not the member of OECD Dec. Even though the  BRICS development bank is relatively small in comparison to global finance but still, the kind of norms which it  is using are   different from other kind of norm of the world bank, IMF, . Economic dynamism with the BRICS has to continue because that is the initial pull. iF   there is no economic dynamism people will forget about BRICS

5.Focus on Terrorism

BRICS member states have urged for concerted efforts to fight terrorism in accordance with the international law. The declaration at the end of the 11^th BRICS Summit stresses on the need to tackle the misuse of information and communication technologies for terrorist activities and combating illegal financial laws.

6.Highlights of India’s Stand

• Intra-BRICS trade accounts for just 17% of world trade, it needs to be increased. India invited business leaders of the member nations for investment, particularly in infrastructure development.
• India proposed to hold the first meeting of BRICS Water Ministers in India.
• India highlighted the menace of terrorism which has resulted in the loss of $1 trillion to the world economy.

6.Brasilia Declaration

• It advocates and supports multilateralism, the central role of the U.N. in international affairs and respect for international law.
• Reforming Multilateral Systems: There is an urgent need to strengthen and reform the United Nations and other multilateral organisations, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to address the significant challenges being faced by the developing countries.
• Support to Multilateralism: The trade war between China and the U.S. and rising protectionism is hurting the global economy. Multilateralism is crucial for emerging countries to protect their own interests.