Durban – President Jacob Zuma says the Brics Business Council, which was launched this morning at the 5th Brics Summit, will help serve as a platform to promote trade and economic relations between the member nations and foster closer ties between the private sectors of each respective member country.
At a New Age business briefing at the ICC in Durban on Wednesday, which was attended by leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics), Zuma said the summit was being held during a critical period when a structural shift in the global economy was taking place, with emerging economies gaining growing importance.
The business council aims to help foster trade as well as technology transfer and co-operation skills development, banking, the green economy and manufacturing between Brics member countries.
Zuma encouraged representatives to map out potential projects that member countries could co-operate on, which could then be presented at the next Brics summit in Brazil in 2014.
“The chairs of the Brics Business Council and members should play a very active role in carving out an implementation plan to accelerate economic co-operation and partnerships between enterprises of the Brics nations,” he said, adding that the “opportunity was immense”.
Zuma pointed out that the planned Brics marine cable, totalling 28 400km, would link member states directly with one another and remove the dependency on developed countries as inter-connection points.
Also speaking at the breakfast briefing, South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies said yesterday’s Brics Business Forum was “highly successful”, with a number of new ideas being shared during various sessions.
Zuma was accompanied by the President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping, while India’s Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma stood in for the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh.
The breakfast was also attended by various ministers from the South African government as well as from other Brics countries. – SAnews.gov.za
