Manmohan Singh proposed BRICS development bank idea in 2012: Jairam Ramesh
New Delhi, September 10
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Thursday highlighted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's role in the evolution of BRICS, recalling that he had proposed the idea of a BRICS Development Bank during India's first hosting of the summit in 2012, which later led to the establishment of the New Development Bank.
In a post on X, Ramesh traced BRICS' origins, saying economist Jim O'Neill coined the term BRIC in 2001 for Brazil, Russia, India and China as emerging global economic powers.
"It was twenty-five years ago, in November 2001, that a British economist Jim O'Neill, then with the investment bank Goldman Sachs, published his famous report 'Building Better Global Economic BRICs'. He coined the acronym BRIC, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China as the four fast-growing economies that would collectively dominate the global economy by the middle of the century. Thereafter, largely at the initiative of President Putin, in September 2006 the Foreign Ministers of this quartet met at the UN in New York and decided to build different types of linkages among themselves," Jairam Ramesh said.
He further added. "The first BRIC Summit was held in June 2009 in Yekaterinburg in Russia. This was attended by Dr Manmohan Singh. In September 2010, BRIC became BRICS with the addition of South Africa. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE joined BRICS in 2024 and Indonesia a year later. The presidency of the Group rotates every year. India first hosted the Summit on March 29, 2012 in New Delhi. It was at this meeting that Dr Manmohan Singh had proposed the idea of a BRICS Development Bank."
Ramesh added that the BRICS Development Bank became the NDB in July 2014.
"This institution came into being in July 2014 headquartered in Shanghai as the New Development Bank (NDB) with noted banker KV Kamath as its first President. Since then, India has borrowed around $10 billion from the NDB for various development projects in different states," he said.
His remarks came ahead of the BRICS Summit scheduled to be hosted by India in New Delhi from September 12-13. The summit will be guided by the official theme, "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability".
— ANI
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