Yaroslav Lissovolik
BRICS
has arguably become the most dynamic group on the international stage as its
core expansion is coupled with a significant rise in the number of developing
economies that have expressed their desire to join the platform.
But
while the greater appeal of BRICS in the Global South is welcome, questions
about how this greater inclusiveness could be combined with higher efficiency
are increasingly being raised in the expert community. Most prominent among the
experts' concerns is that increasing membership could make attaining consensus
within BRICS more difficult. And while the shift to greater inclusivity is
inexorable, one of the key challenges in the evolution of the BRICS family is
the need to combine the trend with greater effectiveness in the group's
operations.
In
this quest to achieve a balance between inclusiveness and efficiency, China has
a special role to play. After all, it was the initiator of the "BRICS
Plus" cooperation model in 2017, engendering a wave of applications from
developing economies to join the BRICS family.
While
China has played a crucial role in rendering the evolution of BRICS more
inclusive, there is scope now to focus on initiatives that will render BRICS
more effective. This involves greater prioritization to economic cooperation
among BRICS Plus economies, most notably in the sphere of trade and investment.
Another
dimension is to attain greater scale while prioritizing pragmatic economic
cooperation. One way to do this is to create a BRICS Plus "partnership
belt" for regional integration arrangements in which the BRICS core
economies are members.
This
would allow for a significant expansion in the BRICS partnership circle via the
regional partners of the group's core economies. Even more importantly, it
would create a platform for trade liberalization among the BRICS Plus economies
whose trade policy is increasingly determined by their regional integration
blocs.
This
co-integration of the regional blocs led by BRICS core economies could provide
scope for the regional development institutions – most notably
regional/multilateral development banks such as the Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank, Eurasian Development Bank and others from the Global South –
to cooperate in co-financing priority projects across the developing world.
This
cooperation among the regional development institutions could be coordinated by
the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) that is becoming an increasingly active
participant in global economic/investment platforms.
In
this respect, another way to combine greater inclusivity and efficiency for
BRICS is by expanding the membership of the NDB to include the regional
partners of the core members of the group. This would widen the scope for
connectivity projects and strengthen the foundations for regional integration
across the Global South.
A
further possibility is to upgrade the capabilities of the BRICS contingent
reserve arrangement. Providing this facility with the instruments to support
BRICS Plus economies would significantly widen the appeal of BRICS in the
developing world and address the key macroeconomic imbalances in developing
countries.
More
generally, striking a balance between efficiency and inclusivity calls for
limiting further expansion in the BRICS core in the near term, while also
allowing for a wider range of partnerships and modalities of economic
cooperation within the BRICS Plus format. Core expansion should remain an open
possibility for economies from the BRICS "partnership belt" that
demonstrate advances in economic cooperation with their partners from the BRICS
Plus circle and adhere to the core values enunciated by the bloc in its
expansion strategy.
Overall,
greater emphasis on concrete economic initiatives (such as a trade
liberalization roadmap) in BRICS' further evolution as opposed to further
prioritization of core expansion would serve to re-balance the BRICS priorities
towards greater pragmatism and economic effectiveness.
Finally,
in the quest to achieve greater efficiency and outreach, BRICS needs to target
global initiatives that address some of the most pressing global problems
facing the integrational community today.
With
respect to international trade, BRICS could take the lead in launching a new
global trade round of the World Trade Organization (something that has not
happened in decades). In the sphere of the international monetary system, it
could present its vision of a more effective and stable construct that duly
connects the resources and capabilities of regional financing
arrangements/regional development banks with the global financial institutions
such as the IMF and the World Bank.
In
the end, by combining efficiency and inclusivity, the BRICS Plus platform
harbors the potential to provide all countries of the Global South an
opportunity to make a tangible contribution to improve the construct of the
world economy.
[Note: Yaroslav Lissovolik, founder of "BRICS+ Analytics" and a
special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a member of the Russian
International Affairs Council. The article reflects the author's opinions]