Date:25/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/25/stories/2008102556481400.htm

International

BRIC effort to tide over crisis: Russia

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia will coordinate efforts in overcoming the global financial crisis jointly with India, China and Brazil, said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.

The Finance Ministers of the BRIC nations will meet next month, said Mr. Lavrov. The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the leading industrialised and developing countries will meet in Sao Paulo, Brazil, ahead of a G-20 summit in the U.S. to tackle the global crisis.

“We are going to coordinate our moves with the leading emerging economies. We are in direct contact with India, China and Brazil; we are interacting in the BRIC and RIC [Russia-India-China] formats,” he added.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier this month the crisis had shown the BRIC nations would be “the locomotive of the world economy in coming years.”

Citing IMF statistics, he said next year the Chinese economy would grow by 9.3 per cent, India by 6.9 per cent, Russia by 5.5 per cent and Brazil by 3.5 per cent. By contrast, the U.S. and the EU are expected to post zero growth in 2009, he said.