BRICS sees tighter trade and investment interconnection

The BRICS business forum has become an important platform for the five member countries to exchange developmental opinions and collect constructive suggestions.

The night view of Banlam Grand Theater and its surrounding area is seen in Xiamen, host city for the 2017 BRICS Summit, in southeast China's Fujian Province. [Photo: Xinhua]

This year in Xiamen, trade and investment are high on the agenda. Delegations covering energy, ecommerce, food, manufacturing, transportation, infrastructure and other sectors gathered to look at how BRICS countries can deepen trade ties within the bloc.

Jiang Zengwei, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, says the forum has generated many valuable suggestions.

"In terms of trade and investment, it was suggested at the forum that BRICS countries should raise the level of freedom. It's also agreed that in the sphere of commerce, BRICS should strengthen cooperation between government and social capital; policies should be made to facilitate capacity collaboration and communications of businessmen. Cooperation on market construction, tariff and eco-commerce development is also mentioned at the meeting."

Svetlana Chupsheva is the general director of the Russian Agency for Strategic Initiatives. She says Russia, as an example of BRICS's openness to trade and investment, has been striving to support various forms of businesses in recent years.

"We are working hard on the elimination on business barriers. We have proposed quite a few measures for that in such spheres as migration, customs regulatory measures and infrastructure. During the past few years Russia did a lot to improve its investment environment. From 2011 to up until now, Russia's position in the World Bank business rating has risen from the 120th place to 40th. This happened thanks to an active participation of businessmen in the process of eliminating barriers on trade and investment.

South Africa, center of the African commerce industry, has also been maintaining openness within the BRICS bloc when it comes to mutual trade and investment.

Sunil Geness, chairperson of the Deregulation Working Group of South Africa, says the perfect example is South Africa's trade relation with China.

"South Africa and China have already bilateral agreements that has been put in place. The way to increase is to ensure more flexible trade opportunities. This is made by governments and WTO level. And in business, what we want to see is the environment that is easy to register business and we can access to the investment promotion agencies and organizers of businesses in China more easily, which I see is happening. From this perspective I think South Africa is replicating that."

Along with the forum, leaders of the five BRICS countries have also said they will remain firmly committed to a rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open and inclusive multilateral trading system as embodied in the WTO.