Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are unlikely to agree on starting a common foreign-currency pool to ward off balance-of-payment or currency crises at a meeting next week, South African Trade Minister Rob Davies said.Leaders of the so-called BRICS nations, which together have $4.4 trillion in foreign reserves, are due to discuss the creation of the reserve pool at their annual summit in the eastern South African port city of Durban from March 26-27.
In October, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the pool will be modeled on the Chiang Mai Initiative, which givesJapan, China, South Korea and 10 southeast Asian nations access to $240 billion of emergency liquidity to shield the region from global financial shocks.
Bloomberg
