BRAZIL’S LULA URGES GLOBAL REFORMS AT BRICS SUMMIT- Lula says the BRICS members’ voting power at the IMF should amount to at least 25%
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged leaders of the BRICS group of developing nations to take the lead on reforms during the summit in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday (July 6).
Lula made the comments during a session titled “Strengthening Multilateralism, Economic-Financial Affairs, and Artificial Intelligence.”
The original BRICS group gathered leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China at its first summit in 2009. The bloc later added South Africa and last year included Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as members. This is the first summit of leaders to include Indonesia.
More than 30 nations have expressed interest in participating in the BRICS, either as full members or partners. Expansion of the BRICS has added diplomatic weight to the gathering, which aspires to speak for developing nations across the Global South, strengthening calls for reforming global institutions such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Monetary Fund.
“To reflect our economic weight, the BRICS members’ voting power at the IMF should amount to at least 25%, not the 18% we currently hold,” said Lula to attendees at the meeting, while at the same time, hailing the BRICS’s New Development Bank as an alternative to main international financial institutions.
He also doubled down on his call for a global and representative governance for artificial intelligence to ensure that its benefits are shared equitably.
