The creator of the BRICS acronym says a single currency for those countries is a ‘ridiculous’ idea
Lula da Silva is one of the advocates of the idea. Economist Jim O’Neill says it is “almost embarrassing” to watch this debate.
Roger Harris
Economist Jim O’Neill, former UK Treasury secretary and former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, says the idea of the BRICS union forming a new single currency to compete with the dollar is “ridiculous”.
It was O’Neill who devised the acronym BRICS to refer to a group of emerging countries whose economies have drawn attention to their growth potential: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
On the eve of the bloc’s 15th summit, which will be held next week in South Africa, Jim O’Neill told the Financial Times that the BRICS countries “have not achieved anything since they started meeting,” emphasizing that creating a common currency for five very disparate economies would be impossible.
“It’s absurd,” said the economist, responding to calls by Brazil’s president and other politicians to create a “barter card”. “Are they going to set up a BRICS central bank? How do you do that? It’s almost embarrassing,” he told the British newspaper on Tuesday.
Some BRICS countries, such as Russia and China, have called on the bloc to challenge the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, but South Africa, which hosts this year’s summit, has already said the issue is not on the agenda. Johannesburg meeting.
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