Hosted by the Economic Daily, the 2nd BRICS Financial Forum opened in Beijing on the 31st of October. Li Yang, the Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), attended the forum and delivered a keynote speech.

The forum’s theme was “Cooperation and Development”. The experts in attendance made speeches concerning a number of issues, including the BRICS’ economic and trade development in the context of the current international economic situation, bilateral and multilateral cooperation among the BRICS, the progress of the BRICS leaders’ summits, obstacles for the development of the BRICS, and how to expand channels of cooperation and increase the strength of the BRICS so as to transform the international economic order.

Li Yang pointed out that in recent years the BRICS have been playing an increasingly important role in global governance as well as economic activities, but meanwhile it must be noted that the economic growth of emerging countries is currently slowing down. He said that since the outbreak of the crisis there has been a phenomenon of “double speed decoupling” in the global growth pattern. In other words, there has been a great difference in the speed of economic development between the developed economies and the emerging ones, especially the BRICS. While the developed countries are developing increasingly slowly, the emerging economies are developing increasingly rapidly. This is however just a phenomenon linked to a certain stage of the financial crisis, added Li. He stressed that no country can manage alone and all issues should be researched in a globalized perspective, in an era when the real economy and finance are closely connected with each other.

Li Yang gave two suggestions for the development of the BRICS: first, the current mode of economic development, highly reliant on external demand, should be changed, and importance should be attached to promoting development through internal demand; second, economic structures should be adjusted in a bid to resolve the problem of structural imbalance. He added that China has taken a series of major measures to make strategic adjustments to its economic structure, starting from resolving the problem of excess production capacity.

Li Yang said that at present, proposals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partner Agreement, Multilateral services, the launch of the Economic Partner Agreement Negotiations between Japan and Europe and the signature of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and Europe have all indicated that developed countries are forming new alliances. He added that the BRICS should draw up some good strategies to respond to these changes, and mutual cooperation among the BRICS is particularly important.

At the forum, many of the experts present expressed the view that although there are differences in national conditions and culture among the BRICS, there are extensive bases and prospects for cooperation between these countries. Many valuable proposals were made, including that the BRICS countries should continue to strengthen their cooperation in investment and trade, further explore the concept of a development bank of the BRICS, jointly respond to challenges like the aging problem and environmental pollution, enhance cooperation mechanisms, promote their own international influence, transform the existing international economic order which is unfavorable to developing countries, and enhance their discourse power on the international stage.

Translated by Yu Hui

Revised by Gabriele Corsetti