The issue of Greece joining the BRICS bank hasn’t been officially discussed, one of President Putin’s top aides Yuri Ushakov told RT, Vesti and Ria, commenting on media reports that Athens had been invited to join the institution.
Rumors about Greece possibly joining the bank emerged ahead of
the leaders of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa
preparing to launch their own development bank at a the seventh
summit of the organization in Russia’s Ufa later this week.
READ MORE: Russia invites Greece to join BRICS
bank
“There has been speculation in the media that Greece may
apply for accession to the New Development Bank. We know of these
assumptions, but so far no one has officially discussed such an
option with us,” Yury Ushakov, President Putin’s aide, said.
The top official revealed that the upcoming discussions are going
to “touch on the parameters of the practical operation of the
BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB) and currency reserve
pool.”
READ MORE: BRICS establish $100bn bank and
currency pool to cut out Western dominance
“They don’t constitute an attempt to oppose the International
Monetary Fund or the World Bank,” Ushakov stressed. These
institutions are rather new instruments for “addressing our
shared objectives,” he said.
The NDB is just launching its operations, Ushakov noted, and it
still has to “set out its priorities and start to
function.”
“And it certainly won’t start its operations with
Greece,” Ushakov added, pointing out that the NBD has
“its own tasks and challenges to deal with.”
The issue of Greece is going to be discussed anyway, but not in
the context of its accession to the NDB “even in the long
term,” the presidential aid said.
The BRICS’ New Development Bank has an initial capital of $50
billion and is believed to have triggered a major reshape of the
Western-dominated financial system. The NDB is expected to be up
and running by the end of the year.
The BRICS countries are also busy creating an alternative to the
US-dominated western SWIFT payment system.
READ
MORE: GDP of BRICS could surpass G7 in 2-3 years – senior Duma
MP
The potential of the bloc of emerging economies can’t be
underestimated. These five countries from four continents account
for 42 percent of the world’s population and 27 percent of global
GDP.
Just 20 years ago, these countries were uncompetitive with most
industrialized G7 countries.
Now the BRICS member states are believed to have outgrown the G7
economies in a matter of a few years and now exercise a major
impact on the world’s economy.