Botswana to benefit from BRICS
Keikantse Lesemela | Thursday March 13, 2014 17:02
Anil Sooklal, International Relations and cooperation, Deputy Director General Asia and Middle East was speaking at a BRICS meeting held in Gaborone yesterday. He said BRICS is looking for ways in which they can foster business relations with Africa as the continent has raw materials and they have skills and labour force.
“Africa has the raw materials we need, so we are saying let us partner because we have labour force and we can transfer skills,” said Sooklal.
Ambassadors and High Commissioners of BRICS countries on Wednesday hosted a presentation for guests from the Botswana government, diplomatic corps and international organisations.
He explained that BRICS is attempting to foster trade balance amongst the Group Seven countries. “We don’t want these countries to use Africa as their competition ground because they are competing among themselves, we are not impressed with their trade structure.”
However South Africa launched a consortium of BRICS Think Tank Council in March last year. In 2011 BRICS countries’ growth marked history as developing countries contributed more to global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth than developed countries accounting to 51 to 49% compared to a ratio of 23 to 77% in the 1990s.
Sooklal highlighted that the importance of BRICS as an engine of new demand growth as a spending power, shifted more dramatically and quickly than expected. “Notably China, India and Brazil will ascend to become the leading world economies by 2050, a much earlier ascendancy indicating USD 15 trillion”.
He said BRICS is expected to account by 50% to global GDP by 2020 with South Africa’s GDP being significantly smaller than the BRICS in 2050. “By 2025 the annual increase in US dollar spending from the BRICS could be twice that of the G6 and four times higher by 2050”.
He said China and India will become the World’s dominant suppliers of manufactured goods and services while Russia, Brazil and South Africa will become dominant suppliers of raw materials. BRICS hold 10% of world oil reserves, 25% of gas reserves and 40% of coal reserves.
Ambassador of Brazil to Botswana, Marcio Araujo Lage said that BRICS countries have been the most successful in coordinating positions in international economic organisations. He however stated that the institutions of global economic and political governance do not reflect the specific weight of their countries or the developing countries in general.
“They have expressed that this situation has to be changed in order to reflect the democratisation of international relations in the 21st century,” said Lage.
He noted that the decision for the establishment of the BRICS development Bank was to reduce the financing gap for infrastructure projects and sustainable development in the block countries and other developing countries. “The agreement for the constitution of the BRICS Bank will reflect a renewed concept of development, through the incorporation of sustainability and the experiences and priorities of the five countries. These two decisions will probably become signed agreements at the next summit in Brazil”.