BRICS Bond Fund likely on agenda

News:Indian Prime Minister will be attending the 11th BRICS summit to be held on November 13 and 14 in Brasilia,Brazil.

Facts:

About the summit:

• The theme for upcoming 2019 BRICS Summit is ‘Economic Growth for an Innovative Future’.
• During the summit,BRICS countries will discuss formation of BRICS Bond Fund which will help member countries conduct intra-BRICS trade in national currencies avoiding the U.S. dollar.
• The summit will discuss the Afghanistan situation.Both China and Russia have maintained dialogue with the Taliban even after the U.S. ended peace talks with the outfit.
• However,India has always maintained that peace process in Afghanistan should be Afghan led and Afghan owned and India will not engage with the Taliban directly and would rather pursue bilateral ties through investing in development projects.
• Further,the summit will also launch the Innovation BRICS Network.It will include networking of research institutes like science parks, incubators and accelerators.

Additional information:

About BRICS:

• BRICS is the acronym coined for an association of five major emerging national economies that have similar economic development. The five countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Brazil is the current chair of BRICS
• Originally the first four were grouped as “BRIC”. The acronym was first used in 2001 by economist Jim O’Neill.
• In 2010, South Africa was officially admitted as a BRIC nation following an invitation from China and the other BRIC nations, making the current acronym BRICS.