By Charlie Robertson
THUR, AUGUST 24 2023-theGBJournal |The BRICS expansion does not warrant the thousand articles that will be written about it. The BRICS do very little and always will.
A meaningful BRICS creation is the New Development Bank. Expanding BRICS and therefore membership of the NDB matters.
Whether it is Saudi or UAE injecting capital, or Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia and probably Iran drawing on that capital, the bank has been a welcome addition to the global financial architecture.
Taking surplus cash from high savings China, or current account surplus Gulf countries, to invest and lend to countries ranging from SA to India to Ethiopia should be a positive for both sides.
The US and EU stalled for too long in allowing the global financial architecture to change, to reflect the rise of China. So the BRICS are building a professionally-run alternative to the World Bank.
My research on the NDB has impressed me (not updated for a year or so, to be fair).
At present, there remains no multi-lateral alternative to the IMF however. And the BRICS currency project warrants zero attention at all.
For Western foreign policy hawks, the BRICS may remind them of the Axis revisionist treaty of 1940, between Nazi Germany, militarist Japan and fascist Italy (satellite powers signed up later).
A challenge to the existing world order, ideologically, economically or militarily. Others will compare it to the ineffective Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War era. Comparing the BRICS to the NAM is closer to the truth – were it not for the NDB
Charlie Robertson is the Head of Macro Strategy, FIM Partners UK Ltd
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