Development bank gets Brics' backing

The Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit will be held in Durban on 26 and 27 March.

Earlier this month, the South African government appointed the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) to serve as an incubator for the South Africa Brics Think Tank for an initial period of one year.

Officials from the five countries met in Durban earlier this month for a workshop aimed at mapping a long-term strategy for a mooted consortium of Brics think tanks.

The group's experts held three days of sessions in the run-up to the summit and said then they they supported the idea of a Brics bank."

Toloraya said at the first phase such a financial institution would serve as a centre of analysis.

"We use World Bank and International Monetary Fund statistics and analytical reports all the time, as we have no such instruments of our own. A future Brics Investment Bank is seen as a mechanism that would help realise where money should go, agree development strategies and co-ordinate investment," Toloraya said.

The experts also speculated the Brics countries might conclude preferential trade agreements.

"It will not be a free trade zone yet, but a first step towards it. Settlements in national currencies are not ruled out," Toloraya said

The recommendation for creating a rating agency for educational establishments has similar reasons behind it.

"None of our universities is high on the Western rating lists. In the meantime, the Silicon Valley in the United States is crowded with Russians," Toloraya said, adding that western university ratings relied on publications in western magazines and on western awards.

"Such an agency would be rather easy to set up. When we know how we rate ourselves, possibly, students may choose to study in Russia anywhere else and not in the United States," he said.

Toloraya sees Brics as an "intellectual project for formulating new rules of global co-existence."

"Brics is an elite project, an attempt by rising powers to safeguard their interests," Toloraya said. Specifically, adding that the group was devoid of an anti-western bias.