Official documents showed that most of the finance ministers and heads of central banks from the BRICS group of countries did not attend a high-level meeting in Moscow on Friday, before the BRICS summit is held later this month, and sent junior officials.
The finance ministers of Egypt and the UAE and the head of the Iranian Central Bank attended the meeting, while Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov called for the creation of an alternative to the Western-dominated global financial system.
But finance ministers and bank presidents from China, India and South Africa did not participate and sent deputies or junior officials instead, a day after Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov accused the West of pressuring countries not to attend the BRICS summit.
The BRICS group, which originally included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
The Moscow meeting is being held along the lines of the G20 agenda, with the summits preceded by meetings of senior economic policy officials who determine the proposals that the leaders will review at the summit.
Russia, which has been severely sanctioned by the West over its war in Ukraine and cut off from international capital markets, is trying to attract BRICS partners through initiatives such as creating the international payment system BRICS Bridge.
“Creating a cross-border payment initiative is our main task,” Siluanov told officials. Russia is also seeking to establish a BRICS clearing centre, a rating agency, a reinsurance company and a commodity exchange.
Siluanov also proposed creating a joint investment platform based on the group’s New Development Bank, the group’s only operating financial institution.
He said that the platform will use a new digital form for transactions, without going into further details.
