BRICS to discuss global economic downturn, militancy and cooperation

REUTERS: The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) will focus on global economic downturn, militancy and cooperation with emerging economies during a summit level meet in India’s western Goa state next week.

India will chair the BRICS Summit on October 15 and 16.
“We will be looking at global economic and political situations and obviously terrorism is a very important part of that. Then we look at global growth prospects, role of BRICS in leading this global growth and our contributions to it. 

Way forward, we look at BRICS cooperation with other emerging economies,” said senior Indian foreign ministry official, Amar Sinha, in New Delhi. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) maintained its forecast for weak global growth October 04 and warned that further stagnation will fuel more populist sentiment against trade and immigration that would stifle activity, productivity and innovation.

IMF kept its overall global growth forecasts unchanged at 3.1 percent for 2016 and 3.4 percent for 2017 after cutting its outlook for five straight quarters. The BRICS consist of more than 43 percent of the world population and about 37 percent of the world Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
India has also invited the leaders of the seven-member BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) regional grouping that includes Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal, to the eighth BRICS meet.

The BIMSTEC would discuss regional connectivity, trade facilitation and investment.
“This is an important opportunity to focus on areas of trade, of investment and of trade facilitation. In our view, trade facilitation is a very important element and, of course, when we talk about trade and investment, we hope and we expect that definitely focus will be on discussing how we can boost trade and how we can improve connectivity within the region,” added another senior foreign ministry official, Preeti Saran.