...
I am not convinced, for several reasons, that the "BRICS Bank" is much of a long-term threat to the Western financial system. The BRICS Bank is really two institutions: the NDB and the CRA (both roughly equivalent to the World Bank and the IMF).
From the Fortaleza Declaration:
12. The Bank shall have an initial authorized capital of US$ 100 billion. The initial subscribed capital shall be of US$ 50 billion, equally shared among founding members. The first chair of the Board of Governors shall be from Russia. The first chair of the Board of Directors shall be from Brazil. The first President of the Bank shall be from India. The headquarters of the Bank shall be located in Shanghai. The New Development Bank Africa Regional Center shall be established in South Africa concurrently with the headquarters. We direct our Finance Ministers to work out the modalities for its operationalization.
13. We are pleased to announce the signing of the Treaty for the establishment of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$ 100 billion. This arrangement will have a positive precautionary effect, help countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures, promote further BRICS cooperation, strengthen the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements. We appreciate the work undertaken by our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. The Agreement is a framework for the provision of liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures. The current commitments to
funding are one hurdle they have to overcome (
note that all FIVE signatories use US Dollars as their numeraire, ha ha ha! Straight out of the Agreement...):
i. China - USD 41 billion
ii. Brazil - USD 18 billion
iii. Russia - USD 18 billion
iv. India - USD 18 billion
v. South Africa - USD 5 billion
(Total: $100 billion)
When will that (funding) happen?
Under what circumstances will the Five Amigos agree to fund OTHER countries' projects? LOL!
* * *
The original Bretton Woods documents (setting up the World Bank and IMF in 1948) mentioned the role of
gold in their reserves.
China, Russia and India all have lots of gold.
NOWHERE is gold mentioned in the BRICS Bank docs.* * *
A view on the BRICS Bank:
"It is my opinion that the "BRICS Bank" has been born out of frustration and resentment of the more developed world and the way the industrialized countries instruct the borrowers in what they are allowed to do and what not to do.
Also, note that the original term (acronym) for BRIC's (South Africa was recently added to have an African member) was a marketing slogan created by a Goldman Sachs analyst (Jim O'Neill). Other than resentment of the USA, Europe and Japan, there is relatively little that unites the current five members of the BRICS other than that they are "surplus countries" (exporting more than they import, and so are owners of a lot of US dollars). That the five BRICS have joined together must make Goldman Sachs crack a smile..."* * *
Some more details of the BRICS Bank (copyright Goldman Sachs):
"The prospects for the NDB and the CRA are uncertain, IMO. There are numerous examples of other international development "banks" that have not gained traction (eg, the Chiang Mai Initiative (early 2000s, in reaction to perceived inaction in resulting from the Asian Financial Crisis, and the BancoSur (2009) whose foundation was sparked by Hugo Chavez...). What?! You have not heard of those two international "banks", the Chiang Mai Initiative and the BancoSur? They failed... The BancoSur failed due to "internal contradictions", whoops, sorry Hugo Chavez...
The five BRICS members have relatively little in common other than they do not like the USA and Europe telling them what to do. To me, the NDB and the CRA almost seem like political documents, despite their similar appearances to the World Bank and the IMF.
They have internal rivalries that are papered over (India and China have not straightened out their borders (although progress maybe has been made), China vs. Russia in the longer term have rivalry issues over Asia and resources, Brazil has stronger trade ties to the USA than to China). Recall that China's economy dominates all of the others, that gives China a much greater influence over the NDB and the CRA than even the USA has over the World Bank and the IMF..."* * *
Link to above quotations:
http://robertmixblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-brics-bank-first-look.html