India attends first BRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meet

On November 10, 2020, India attended first BRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ meet. The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman represented India at the meet.

Key Highlights

During the meet, the finance ministers observed that BRICS members have delivered significant initiatives in 2020 at G20 Action Plan in response to COVID-19. Also, the leaders highlighted that G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative ensured immediate support.

During the meet, the ministers also discussed on the expansion of the membership of New Development Bank.

New Development Bank

The New Development Bank was set up at Fortaleza Summit in 2014. According to Fitch and Standard and Poor’s, the bank has been provided with AA+ risk rating. AA+ risk rating is one of the credit rating codes and classes. AA+ is of higher grade. The ratings of Moody’s are Aaa, Aa1, Aa2, etc. Ratings of S&P are AAA, AA+, etc.

Contingent Reserve Arrangement

The Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) of BRICS aims to shore up its member countries during the event of crisis in their Balance of payments. The total amount of resources allocated to CRA is 100 billion USD. The individual commitments are as follows

• China: 41 billion USD
• Brazil: 18 billion USD
• Russia: 18 billion USD
• India: 18 billion USD
• South Africa: 5 billion USD

BICAS

It is BRICS Initiative for Critical Agrarian Studies. It is largely concerned with Global agrarian transformations. It connects academic researches across political sociology, political Ecology and political economy to exclude agrarian transformations.

BRICS STI

It is science, technology and innovation cooperation among the BRICS countries. It was begun in 2014. The main objective of this cooperation is to create concrete economic results based on innovation.

Security

The grouping holds National Security Advisors meeting annually. During the meet the member countries exchange their approaches towards International security threats, terrorism, corruption, money laundering, drug trafficking and cyber-attacks.

Business Council

It was established in 2013 during Durban submit. It aims to bring the business communities of the members closer. There are 9 working groups under the Council. They are manufacturing, infrastructure, energy, agri-business, regional aviation, financial services, harmonization levels and capacity development.

Month: Current Affairs - November, 2020