The New Development Bank, a financial institution created by the BRICS bloc of emerging markets, has no immediate plans to mint a common currencysaid its vice president and chief financial officer.
Although BRICS members (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are pushing to increase trade among themselves in local currencies, they are not prepared to challenge the global dominance of the dollarLeslie Maasdorp noted in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg TV’s Haslinda Amin.
“The development of any alternative is more of a medium to long-term ambition,” he said. “At the moment there is no suggestion to create a BRICS currency.”
The bloc, which was formed in 2009, has struggled to gain more weight globally as a way to counter the dominance the United States and its traditional allies have over multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Still, even the Chinese renminbi “is a long way from becoming a reserve currency,” Maasdorp said.
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About the New Development Bank
A key piece of the BRICS strategy is the Shanghai-based New Development Bank, which has $50 billion of subscribed capital and plans to add several new emerging market member countries this year in a bid to expand its lending capacity, according to Maasdorp.
In addition to the main BRICS countries, the bank already counts Bangladesh and the United Arab Emirates among its members. Uruguay is in the process of incorporation and Saudi Arabia submitted an application.
“The intention has always been to create a global bank anchored in emerging markets,” Maasdorp said.
Maasdorp also pointed out that the bank aspires to allocate the 40% of loans to climate-related projects.
