Argentina wants the BRICS emerging economies to admit it as a full member, President Alberto Fernandez said on Friday at the group’s 14th summit.
“Argentina wants to join this space and offer its contributions as a member of it,” Fernandez said via video link.
The BRICS nations, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, account for over 40 percent of the global population and nearly a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product.
The 14th BRICS summit was hosted by China, which currently holds the rotating presidency.
The Argentinian head of state said the group “constitutes a platform with enormous capacities to discuss and implement an agenda for the future that will lead to a better and fairer time.”
Fernandez added that “the institutional and economic weight of the BRICS can become a factor of financial stability” and the expansion of the bloc’s “New Development Bank can be a useful instrument to strengthen national infrastructures.”
“It is time to explore cooperation mechanisms, such as the currency swap that Argentina signed with China,” he said, calling for the creation of an International Risk Rating Agency that could “put in public hands what today is in the hands of private interests.”
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the BRICS countries are working on setting up a new global reserve currency, based on a currency basket of the five nations. Putin also said banks from BRICS economies can freely connect to the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), Russia’s alternative to SWIFT.
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