Russian central bank governor claims BRICS group has now surpassed G7 in aggregate GDP

02/02/2024 / By Ramon Tomey

Elvira Nabiullina, the governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), has claimed that the BRICS group has now surpassed the Group of Seven (G7).

She issued this pronouncement on Jan. 30, telling the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency that the BRICS member states have exceeded their G7 counterparts in the share of global gross domestic product (GDP) in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). A metric popular with many economists, PPP compares economic productivity and standards of living between countries for the differences in the cost of goods and services.

The CBR chief noted that with the addition of new members in the BRICS group, its share in global output rose from 31 percent to 35 percent as of the end of 2023. “BRICS economies are developing quite quickly,” she remarked, highlighting that the group is playing a crucial role in the world.”

In contrast, data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showed that the G7’s share in global GDP in terms of PPP has been on a steady drop over the past several years. From 50.42 percent in 1982, this fell to 30.39 percent in 2022 – and the IMF projects this figure to go lower at 29.44 percent this year.

Formerly made up of only the eponymous five nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – 2023 witnessed a historical enlargement of the group. It admitted Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, while leaving the door open to accepting new members. Eight other countries – Venezuela, Thailand, Senegal, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Bahrain and Pakistan – submitted formal applications to join, while numerous others voiced interest in joining. (Related: END OF THE DOLLAR: South Africa says over 40 countries want to join BRICS.)

“With five more new nations, BRICS is poised to account for more than 40 percent of global crude oil production, while its population will amount to nearly 3.6 billion,” Angeline Tan wrote for The New American magazine.

BRICS to decouple from Western-controlled payment system

Nabiullina also announced that Moscow is discussing using national systems for transmitting financial messages with fellow BRICS member countries. According to her, 159 foreign participants from 20 countries have already joined the Russian system.

“Russia has a System for Transmitting Financial Messages (SPFS), which is an alternative to SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication). Similar infrastructure exists in some other countries,” the CBR head remarked. “We are holding discussions on the interaction of such platforms, but here the interest and technical readiness of our partners are important.”

According to Tan, the CBR set up the SPFS to mitigate the risks of Russian banks potentially being disconnected from the SWIFT international interbank system. The SWIFT system links more than 11,000 organizations in almost every country in the world for transmitting information and making payments.

Aside from this, Nabiullina said Russia will suggest key initiatives to boost cooperation among BRICS member countries when it assumes the rotating chairmanship of the bloc for 2024 – which it did on Jan. 1.

“First of all, we would like to promote the topic of mutual recognition of ratings. This is very important for mutual trade and investment,” she explained. “In our view, mutual recognition of ratings will be faster and more practical.”

According to Nabiullina, the notion of creating supranational rating agencies has been broached both within BRICS and within the Eurasian Economic Union. While she acknowledged that the idea was promising, she mentioned that it involved “a lot of complex issues.” Such issues include who should be the founder, how to facilitate financing and how to guarantee the independence and professionalism of the agency.

Aside from this, Russia plans to put forward a way to combat the laundering of illicit funds Moscow has experience in creating such a platform dubbed “Know Your Customer,” which the country is willing to share as per Nabiullina.

“We want to see what common platform solutions in this area can be developed at the level of BRICS. This would greatly simplify the cooperation of business between our countries.”

Visit CurrencyClash.com for more stories about the BRICS group.

Watch this video that discusses whether the 10 BRICS members – the original core group and the five new nations that joined in 2023 – are the 10 horns of the beast in the book of Revelation.

This video is from the Brachaim’s channel on Brighteon.com.