BRIC should consider establishment of a Joint Business Forum: Manmohan

Yekaterinburg (Russia), June 16 (ANI): Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today said that BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRIC) summit) should consider the establishment of a Joint Business Forum which can identify areas for cooperation such as science and technology, energy, agriculture, aviation, pharmaceuticals and services.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Brazil's President Lula da Silva discussed a host of global issues, including the financial crisis, food and energy security, climate change and international terrorism.

"Our cooperation in the G-20 process must be backed up by cooperation in the real economy. The volume of trade among BRIC countries has grown rapidly in recent years. Intra-BRIC investments have also grown," Dr. Singh said while addressing the summit.

"The important issue today is to implement the decisions that we have taken. Finance Ministers and Central Bank representatives of BRIC countries have met and identified the areas where our efforts should be focused. Our countries should also keep in contact with each other in the run up to the next G-20 Leaders Summit in Pittsburgh," he said.

"We also recognised the continuing need to redefining the role of institutions of global economic and financial governance to deal with the problems of today and to reflect contemporary realities," he said.

He further said that In India has launched a number of fiscal stimulus packages including additional public spending, amounting to over three percent of its GDP.

"Our monetary policy initiatives have been targeted towards maintaining a comfortable liquidity position and ensuring that credit delivery remains on track. Our banking system remains well regulated, capitalized and profitable," he added.

"The Joint Statement and the Statement on Global Food Security that we will be adopting later today provide a road-map for our future work," Dr Singh said. (ANI)