Economics behind Pakistan's desire to join BRICS: Report
Business
Islamabad is among 19 nations pushing for the grouping's membership
NEW DELHI (Monitoring Desk) – Economic compulsions have made Pakistan to work on joining the BRICS – a five-nation grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – says a report which cites the current economic crisis and the stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the reasons.
According to The Sunday Guardian, an Indian newspaper, Pakistan is among 19 countries that have expressed their interest in joining the BRICS, and these aspirations will be deliberated upon at the group’s upcoming summit in South Africa in August.
However, the report claims that there is fear among the grouping that any attempt to include Pakistan as part of the grouping could weaken the credibility of the BRICS because of India.
“If India chooses to refrain from active participation in the group, it will deny the grouping of one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, consumer markets and advanced manufacturing hubs.”
It claims that financial status is also a hurdle to Islamabad’s ambitions as the BRICS is directly challenging the G7 in terms of economics and trade. “In terms of GDP purchasing power parity (PPP), China is the world’s largest economy followed by India in third place, Russia in sixth and Brazil in eighth. As a grouping, they represent 31.5 per cent of the global GDP while G7’s share has dropped to 30 per cent.”
However, the combined GDP of the BRICS nations is slightly more than that of the United States. That’s why Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has repeatedly urged the fellow nations in the grouping to use their own currencies in international trade.
Lula even suggested introducing a common currency for the South America’s countries – a continent that has been fighting the US influence for over 200 years.
Earlier, it had emerged that the Shanghai-based New Development Bank [also knows as BRICS Bank] was in talks with Saudi Arabia for the country’s admission as its ninth member. Apart from the five BRICS nations, three other countries – Bangladesh, the UAE and Egypt – are now the New Development Bank members.
(This report is mainly developed courtesy The Sunday Guardian)
