Argentine Finance Minister Invited to BRICS New Development Bank's Annual Meeting / Matías Russo Coroman
Author: Matías Russo Coroman
May 10, 2023 (EIRNS)—Dilma Rousseff, president of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB), and Chinese Finance Minister Kun Liu, who is also vice-chairman of the NDB’s board of governors, have extended an invitation to Argentine Finance Minister Sergio Massa to attend the Bank’s 8th annual meeting that will take place in Shanghai May 30-31. Entitled "Shaping a New Era for Global Development," and hosted by China, the meeting will include not only finance ministers of member nations, but also representatives of national governments, bankers, business leaders and representatives of civil society.
According to the Argentine dailies (Dangdai} and {Infobae} today, a top agenda item of the meeting will be the issue of modifying Article 7 of the Bank’s statutes to allow it to pre-finance Brazilian exports to Argentina, which would pay for those exports in pesos, to be later converted to Brazilian reals. This type of non-dollar trade arrangement would mean that Argentina wouldn’t have to use its very scarce dollar reserves to pay for imports from Brazil.
This matter was discussed by Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and Brazil’s Lula da Silva when the two met in Brasilia on May 2, at which time Lula expressed his desire to assist Argentina at a time of grave financial crisis. The NDB has a contingency fund to deal with market crises but, so far, it can only be accessed by member nations.
Following his meeting with Fernandez, Lula spoke with Rousseff to discuss possible NDB help for Argentina, which, however, requires modifying one article of the Bank’s statute and obtaining the approval of BRICS finance ministers. He said he had also spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about helping Argentina and that China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang had traveled to Shanghai specifically to discuss the Argentine case with Rousseff.
The invitation to the annual meeting states that "world development confronts ever greater challenges," among them "the weakening of economic growth, the increased volatility of financial markets, the upsurge of geopolitical tensions, fragmentation of trade networks and the deterioration of climate perspectives. The world is experiencing great changes not seen in a century."
The goal of the NDB annual meeting, as the invitation explains, is to debate how the Bank "can improve its role in connecting the BRICS and other emerging and developing markets to work together for that new era of global development."
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