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A joint declaration at the BRICS Summit would be an amazing achievement as leaders of the member countries are already in Delhi, said Rajan Kumar, Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Speaking to ANI, Kumar said, A joint declaration would be an amazing achievement because all the leaders are already here, important leaders. So now the second step would be to get the joint declaration. He said it was difficult to predict whether the declaration would be finalised, but the Sherpas of the member countries were working hard towards reaching a consensus. The issue of joint declaration is stuck at just one point. This is because the UAE is a member and the UAE is being targeted by Iran in the ongoing conflict. As a consequence, they have different views on how to this is about wording, how to put the words in the joint declaration, Kumar said. He added that the Indian Sherpa and other Sherpas were working together to tweak the wording to enable the joint declaration to come out. Kumar said the declaration was important as otherwise some countries in the West could build a narrative that consensus could not be reached among BRICS members and that the grouping was divided. On de-dollarisation in the BRICS context, Kumar said the grouping was not expected to come up with a new currency in the short term. BRICS is not coming up with a new currency in the short term. Why? Because coming up with a new currency would mean coordination of monetary policy, coordination of financial policies, coordination of industrial policies, and only the European Union has come up with the new currency, the euro, he said. Kumar said BRICS countries had instead started trading in their local currencies. But what is happening within the BRICS countries is that they have started trading in local currency. So instead of de-dollarisation, the right term will be localisation of the trade. Indigenisation of the trade where, you know, they are trading in the national currency, he said. Kumar said such local-currency trade would impact the dollar to some extent, but would not have a major impact as the dollar still accounts for around 60 per cent. India is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13. India's Chairship is guided by the theme Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, with development, sustainability and innovation forming key areas of focus. BRICS has emerged as an important platform for coordination among major emerging economies and for advancing the interests of the Global South in multilateral institutions. Its agenda covers development, finance, technology, trade and people-to-people exchanges. (ANI)
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