(St. Petersburg) – The BRICS group of emerging economies will contribute $100 billion to a fighting fund to steady currency markets destabilised by an expected pullback of U.S. monetary stimulus, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. China, holder of the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, will contribute the bulk of the currency pool. But it will be much smaller than the $240 billion originally envisaged and officials said it would not be functional for some time yet.
“The initiative to establish a BRICS currency reserve pool is at its final stage,” Putin said in opening remarks to a meeting of BRICS leaders during a Group of 20 summit in Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg. “Its capital volume has been agreed at $100 billion.” At the meeting of BRICS leaders, China committed $41 billion; Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each; and South Africa $5 billion.
Earlier both Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao and Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said details still needed to be worked out, suggesting that beyond the announcement much more work would need to be done on the reserve facility.