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Durban: Finance ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have agreed on a BRICS bank on the lines of the World Bank and the International on Monetary Fund (IMF) that will address the development needs of emerging and poor economies.
"It's done," South Africa's Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan told reporters after a meeting with his counterparts from the other four BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Finance Minister P Chidambaram represented India at the meeting.
"We made very good progress," Gordhan said.
Gordhan, however, left the finer details of the proposed institution to be announced by the BRICS leaders -- where India is led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- after their two-day summit concludes on Wednesday.
The proposal for a bank, with a collective foreign exchange reserve and a fund for financing developmental projects, was mooted to counter the influence of other global institutions like the World Bank, which are more tuned to pursuing policies set by the West.
The meeting on Tuesday is understood to have accepted the recommendations of an expert committee set up in this regard.
The five-member bloc collectively accounts for about 40 per cent of the world's population, 30 per cent of the world's land mass, 20 per cent of the gross domestic product in real terms and 26 per cent of purchasing power.
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