4th BRICS Summit starts plenary session
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E-mail Xinhua, March 29, 2012
The plenary session of the fourth BRICS Summit started on Thursday morning to seek closer cooperation among BRICS countries.
While addressing the session, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said BRICS should work together to promote sustained global economic growth, speak with one voice on important international issues and share experiences among member countries.
"We should encourage greater cooperation among our business community, issues like visas must be clarified as long as BRICS countries have strong interest in removing barriers to trade and investment flow global," Singh said.
Singh also mentioned that the BRICS bloc, as members of Group of 20, should work together to ensure that an appropriate solution to be found for Europe to help itself and bring life to Doha round.
During the session, leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will elaborate their positions on global governance, sustainable development and cooperation among BRICS countries.
Referring to the preparation of a new BRICS development bank discussed among the leaders, Zuma said it is a development also welcomed by other African leaders as the project could support infrastructure construction in his country, as well as trade and investment opportunities with other BRICS partners.
It is also a project that"has great potential to help out create good jobs in developing countries,"Zuma added.
Zuma welcomed leaders of other member countries to visit South Africa next year as the country will be the host for the fifth BRICS Summit in 2013.
Topics discussed among the leaders also included peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa, food security, climate change, energy security and urbanization.
Agreements to boost up trade cooperation and a joint declaration were expected to be signed after the plenary session.
The summit, featuring the theme of BRICS countries' commitment to the partnership of stability, security and prosperity, was chaired by Singh and also attended by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, Chinese President Hu Jintao and South African President Jacob Zuma.
