Johannesburg - There is no necessity for another African country to be part of the Brics grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa as other African countries are included at its summits by invitation.
This is the view of Independent Newspapers chairman Dr Iqbal Survé, who was speaking on the Candid Business show on CliffCentral.com this week. Independent Newspapers owns Business Report.
“There is no real requirement or necessity to have another African country to be in the Brics meeting or council. They are invited in any case,” Survé, who attended the sixth Brics summit held in Brazil this month, said.
Earlier this year, the size of Nigeria’s economy surpassed that of South Africa and this has led to speculation that Africa’s most populous nation might be invited to be part of the Brics grouping. Survé said: “The countries that are part of Brics have a responsibility to regionally integrate with their fellow continental countries.”
He was in discussion with Ellis Mnyandu, the show’s executive producer and Business Report editor, and Arnie Hicks, the associate producer of Candid Business.
At the summit in Brazil, the Brics leaders agreed to establish a development bank with headquarters in Shanghai and a $100bn (R1 trillion) contingent reserve arrangement, which member states can tap in case of balance of payment crises.
Survé said that there was no real debate about where the headquarters of the Brics bank would be located given that China would make the largest contribution to the bank.
The so-called New Development Bank would direct most of its development funding to African projects, Survé said.
“There was huge consensus that the continent that requires the greatest infrastructure investment over the next couple of years is Africa and a large sum of the funding should be directed to African infrastructure development.”
There were discussions at the summit that two-thirds of the funding to be raised by the New Development Bank could be directed to African infrastructure development.
“The fact that there is only one regional office and that office is located in Johannesburg tells you that the focus of the funding will be towards Africa.”
Survé said the New Development Bank was not an exclusive funder and would work with the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other multilateral lenders.
“The Brics bank does not see itself as being in competition with Bretton Woods institutions. The focus of the Brics bank and the Brics council must be on the emerging market economies, not only the Brics countries but also the regional countries surrounding those Brics countries.”