Brazil’s president stresses importance of BRIC’s common strategy in G20

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Monday that the countries of the BRIC group and South Africa must have a unique strategy at the next G20 meeting.

Lula said in his weekly radio show that in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) meetings in Brasilia last week, the five countries defined a common strategy for the next G20 meeting in Canada, which is to take place in June.

According to Lula, at the G20, the BRIC and IBSA countries intend to discuss their participation in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as financing and credit mechanisms.

“If you arrive at a meeting with a common intent, you are halfway done convincing other countries such as France, Argentina and Mexico to get on our side. I think there is a good chance for us to make a great advance for Brazil in the international area,” he said.

Lula considered last week’s BRIC and IBSA meetings “an extraordinary occurrence” for all countries involved, and stressed the importance of diversifying Brazil’s trade partners.

“The more partners you have, the more spread out you are, selling and buying, the less dependency and more chances you have to emerge well from the crisis, as we did,” he said.

Lula will travel to Russia next month with a group of businessmen in order to boost the countries’ trade.