OREANDA-NEWS. April 14, 2011. Question: The mechanism of cooperation within the framework of the BRICS is becoming increasingly mature and its influence is gradually expanding. How do you assess the ways of development of this mechanism? What is Russia’s concept for the development of the BRICS in the future?

Sergey Lavrov: Our association has qualitatively changed over the year since the BRIC summit in Brasilia. Its international prestige and influence have strengthened. Dialogue has significantly intensified on the pressing problems of the international agenda in relation to the simultaneous participation of all the partners in the Security Council of the United Nations. The association has widened upon the admission to its ranks of a leading African state, the Republic of South Africa. Thus, the BRICS has acquired a truly global dimension. By acting together in the Group of Twenty, we have achieved significant progress in the reformation of the international financial and economic architecture during the past year, first of all in World Bank reform and in the start of the reformation of the International Monetary Fund.

The most promising ways of further development of the BRICS in our view are the following.

Firstly, advance further our collaboration in the domain of international economic relations. It is meant to accelerate the overcoming of the consequences of the global crisis and to help create a more democratic and equitable financial and economic system.

Secondly, we need to build up the interaction of the BRICS countries in the international-political sphere. It is already becoming an increasingly important factor in the reinforcement of universal security. The members of the association proceed from a principled approach that the international community should rely on political and diplomatic rather than military force-based methods of conflict settlement. We are convinced of the necessity to strengthen the tendency for the creation of a polycentric, more equitable and democratic world that relies on the methods of network diplomacy.

The BRICS participants cooperate actively within the UN framework, above all in the Security Council. Striking examples of the interaction are the common position taken by our states in the UNSC during the consideration of the situations in Libya, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan; the cosponsored resolutions of the UN General Assembly on the prevention of the placement in outer space of weapons of any type and of the use or threat of force in respect of space objects; our coinciding approaches to consideration of many questions on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council and ECOSOC.

We believe it’s necessary to think of developing the external ties of the BRICS with major developing countries (Indonesia, Egypt, Mexico, and so on) and with international organizations, such as the UN, SCO, ASEAN, and EurAsEC. It would be useful, for example, to invite to individual meetings of experts and sectoral ministers of the BRICS states, third country representatives as observers.

Finally, the BRICS format gives the participating states unique opportunities for economic, scientific and technological cooperation on the basis of the complementary character of our economies. Together they possess a huge resource base, the world’s largest manpower reserves and considerable internal markets (the total population of the BRICS countries is almost three billion people). All BRICS countries aim to tackle the problems of modernization of the economy and society along the lines of the development of high technology branches of industry and of a qualitative improvement in people’s standard of living.

Question: Uncertainty is still continuing about the prospects of world economic recovery. This brings to many countries the challenges of likely food crises, inflation, an overheating of the economy, and so on. In what fields do you think the BRICS countries must step up their practical cooperation in order to assist the restoration of the world economy and to stabilize economic growth?

Sergey Lavrov: It is above all collaboration within the G20. Now and in the future the Group of Twenty is the principal instrument of reconstructing international financial and economic relations.

The BRICS countries have been the engine of global economic development over the past decade. In 2010 they accounted for about a quarter of the world’s GDP (by parity of the purchasing power of currencies). It is our states that have been ensuring an approximately 50 percent increase in world GDP, more specifically during the difficult post-crisis period. I will particularly note the impressive successes of our Chinese friends – your economy last year became the world’s second economy in terms of absolute size of GDP.

Thanks to the efforts of the participants of the association the summits of the Group of Twenty in Toronto (June 2010) and in Seoul (November 2010) achieved substantive progress in carrying out the decisions on reform of the international financial organizations. As a result the share of the countries with emerging markets and of the developing countries in the World Bank rose from 43.97 percent to 47.19 percent of the total number of votes, and in the IMF from 39.5 percent to 42.29 percent. Four BRICS countries – the PRC, Russia, Brazil and India – are currently among the ten major shareholders of the IMF. Now we need, by acting as unitedly, to carry through IMF reform, getting realized by 2014 the goals that we together set for ourselves in 2008.

We can make an important contribution to the stabilization and progress of the world economy through the development of cooperation among our countries.

Russia invites the partners to jointly tackle our extensive tasks in energy development, in the aircraft industry, in the peaceful utilization of outer space, to take up the enhancement of the quality of our public health systems through collaboration in the domain of telemedicine and pharmaceutics, and to realize a whole array of high technology projects – from the production of second-generation nanomaterials and biofuel to the development of new methods of farming with regard for global climate changes. A separate and important theme is the development of cooperation in the sphere of agriculture, especially taking into account the climate change factor.

On all these themes we have submitted the appropriate proposals within the BRICS framework.

Question: The international financial crisis has accelerated changes in the structure of the world economy and the process of the reformation of the international financial system. What role in your view can the BRICS mechanism play in facilitating the establishment of a new equitable and balanced international political and economic order? What kind of system should the international system be in the future, in the Russian side’s opinion?

Sergey Lavrov: You correctly note the growing role of the BRICS in the world economy and finances. Indicative of this was, in particular, the course of the talks on the reformation of the IMF. At the final stage they were conducted by the financial G7 and our countries. I think the BRICS can play an active, creative role in working out in the G20 a long-term program of post-crisis development of the world, aimed at a gradual removal of global imbalances in the economy. It is clear that such a program should not rest on the imposition of one-sided and especially politicized criteria and quantitative indices, but on due regard for the specific features of particular countries and regions.

Given the important role that each of our countries plays in the economy of vast regions, we could help the formation of a network of interacting regional integration groups on four continents of the world. This would also constitute an input into the creation of a new, more balanced system of international economic relations, reflecting the emerging polycentric character of the contemporary world.

But the main contribution of our states to the creation of a more stable and democratic world order must be comprehensive strengthening of the economic potential of our own countries, the successful tackling of social problems and ensuring the prosperity of our peoples. It is the convincing force of example that will help the BRICS countries make a weighty (including intellectual) contribution to shaping a new look of the 21st century world.

Question: How do you assess the current state of economic and trade relations between Russia and China? In what spheres will Russia and China be able to expand bilateral cooperation? What significance does the strengthening of trade and economic cooperation between Russia and China have for effective interaction within the BRICS framework?

Sergey Lavrov: Overall, we assess positively the situation in bilateral trade and economic cooperation. The past year was marked by its substantial advancement. Russian-Chinese trade topped the record pre-crisis level of 2008 and came close to 60 billion dollars. China has moved into first place among the trading partners of Russia.

Noticeable progress has been made in virtually all segments of bilateral energy cooperation. Completed is the construction of an oil pipeline to China, along which Russian oil began to flow at the beginning of the year. Talks have reached the finish straight to organize extensive pipeline deliveries of Russian natural gas.

There has begun the implementation of such an important document for our relations as the Program of Cooperation between the regions of Russia’s Far East and Eastern Siberia and of the Northeast of the PRC.

Our countries apparently should now focus on the qualitative buildup of economic and trade cooperation with the goal of imparting a strategic character to it.

In this context we attach great significance to the implementation of the plans mapped out in the energy field. There is also a need to significantly pull up investment cooperation and cooperation in production, the scale of which so far does not match either the capabilities or the requirements of our countries. This could be such areas of cooperation as timber processing, the aluminum industry, energy and agricultural machine building, civilian aircraft manufacturing, the agro-industrial sector and the clothing industry. There is every reason to believe that joint projects in these fields in their significance can in the future extend beyond the framework of bilateral relations.

With a view to modernizing the Russian economy we invest lots of money in the innovation infrastructure – technoparks, industrial estates, areas for the introduction of new technology. Naturally we would like to see Chinese companies among their residents, as they have accumulated in recent years a solid experience in the field of applied technologies and their commercialization.

As to the latter part of your question, our sectoral collaboration with China is increasingly built on a systemic and planned basis. A ramified mechanism of intergovernmental cooperation has been set up, consisting of three commissions at vice premier level and a total of about 20 specialized sub-commissions headed by leaders at the rank of minister or deputy minister.

Within the framework of the BRICS, I think this experience can be successfully used. In our opinion, it is necessary to more swiftly launch the already established cooperation mechanisms (in particular, the working group on agriculture) and to agree on the creation of a number of new ones which we see as promising. Those could be groups on energy, on scientific, technological and innovative cooperation, on pharmaceutics and on settlements in national currencies.