The Strength Of Four

ajtr

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The BRIC summit, which will take place in Brazil on April 15-16, 2010, is a young forum that nevertheless has gained great international recognition from the outset. And this is no surprise, since its member countries comprise 26 per cent of the world's territory, 42 per cent of the world's population and 14.6 per cent of the world's GDP. In recent years, BRIC's share in global economic development has exceeded 50 per cent.

What place does Russia hold in this group of states?

Overcoming the impact of the global crisis, our country is following the path of comprehensive renovation at the same time. Our key objective is to achieve sustainable economic growth and an increase in the income of citizens on the basis of a diversified economy, modernised technologies and an innovative development model. We increasingly invest in further outer space exploration, energy efficiency improvement, development of nuclear and alternative energy, information, telecommunications and new medical technologies and drug development. We attach great importance to processing of minerals, which constitute Russia's riches, as well as agricultural production. I am convinced that our BRIC partners will find these Russian achievements useful.

For our part, we have been following with interest and appreciation the dynamic development of other alliance members. A combination of the relative competitive advantages of our countries is beneficial to all in many fields, and offers us unique incentives for cooperation. Many of such advantages have already been made use of.

Here is one example. At a recent meeting in Moscow our agriculture ministers have decided to establish a joint database to assess the state of food security in the BRIC countries and promote cooperation in the field of development and exchange of agricultural technologies. Such technologies are intended to reduce the negative climate impact on food security, and ensure adaptation of agricultural industry to climate change.

There are also wide opportunities for multilateral cooperation in the field of nuclear energy, aircraft engineering, exploration and use of outer space and nanotechnologies. Such cooperation can be enhanced through establishing financial interaction of the BRIC countries, in particular in the form of agreements on the use of national currencies in mutual trade.

In our view, joint economic security measures are also important, such as mutual information exchange on possible speculative attacks at currency, stock and commodity exchanges.

We appreciate the active and creative efforts of the Brazilian chairmanship that brought BRIC cooperation to a qualitatively new level. BRIC has recently held a number of very useful meetings of finance ministers, senior representatives on security issues and officials of development banks. What is especially important is that our cooperation is expanding due to involvement of business communities and civil society. Today, Brazil is hosting the meeting of representatives of commercial banks, as well as of the business forum and conference of scientific and research centres of the "quartet".

Since the first full-scale BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg (June 16, 2009), we have managed to make a good start in many areas of work that we have identified. Thus, our states are active in the Group of Twenty that has become the main mechanism for coordination of international efforts aimed at establishing a new system of global economic governance. Thanks to a common approach, we succeeded in the redistribution of 5 per cent of voting shares in the IMF and 3 per cent in the World Bank in favour of emerging and developing economies at the G-20 summit at Pittsburgh. We advocate the adoption of clear "rules of the game" that would ensure equitable participation for all G-20 members in its activities.

In addition, BRIC countries will be pushing for a successful accomplishment of the long-overdue reforms of the Bretton Woods system now underway. I believe we could also join our efforts to promote the development of the G-20 action programme in the post-crisis period and make our joint contribution to this work.

By strengthening the economic framework of the multipolar world, BRIC countries are objectively contributing to creating conditions for strengthening international security. We share an imperative that the international community should resolve conflicts through politico-diplomatic and legal means, rather than the use of military force. In our view, it is necessary to strengthen collective principles in international relations and to establish a just and democratic world order.

Russia, China, India and Brazil actively cooperate within the United Nations. The most notable example is co-sponsorship by these states of UN General Assembly resolutions on matters related to the prevention of placement of any kinds of weapons in outer space and non-use of force against outer space objects.

I am confident that cooperation among our countries has a great future. Although we are just at the beginning, the solid foundation of our dialogue in the BRIC format reliable and mutually beneficial partnerships allows us to count on the success of this promising forum for the benefit of our countries and peoples.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../The-Strength-Of-Four/articleshow/5788658.cms
 

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