PANAJI: With ‘Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions’ as the core theme of the upcoming BRICS Summit 2016, India will push for stronger economic policy and enhanced cooperation apart from having the global terror threat on the agenda of the summit to be held in Goa from October 15 to October 17.
The state is geared up to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazilian President Michel Temer, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African President Jacob Zuma for the 8th BRICS Summit, which will be chaired by India.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, earlier this year, had stated that India will adopt a five-pronged approach during its chairmanship. “It will comprise Institution Building, Implementation, Integration, Innovation and Continuity with Consolidation,” she had said.
Secretary for Economic Relations in External Affairs Ministry Amar Sinha earlier this month had said, “Agenda is drawn in a broad-brush manner. We will be looking at the global economic and political situation. Obviously, terrorism is very important part of that.”
This is the second time that India is chairing the rotating summit after 2012 when the 4th BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit was hosted in New Delhi.
The BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI), during the two meetings this year, has laid the basis to prepare the agenda for BRICS Trade and Economy Ministers and the final action plan document is expected to be finalised at the last meeting, to be held during the summit.
India is also exploring greater cooperation among BRICS in services and in ways to deal with non-tariff measures restricting goods trade between BRICS member countries. India is expected to push for an agreement on business visa liberalisation and issuing business travel cards during the summit. Visa liberalisation is expected to allow businessmen multiple-entry business visa for a longer period of time.
Indian media has speculated that in the backdrop of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill Development’ programmes, India is working on a programme for cooperation in the field of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).
Besides, in the backdrop of recent terror attacks, it is expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will strongly push for joint efforts to tackle terrorism. In the BRICS outcome document, there would be very strong paragraphs on terrorism including how to deal with countries that provide sanctuaries and safe havens for terrorists and how to cut down their financing.
Apart from BRICS, India has taken initiatives to revive the seven-nation regional bloc ‘Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation’ or BIMSTEC. Heads of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand and Bhutan will be participating in the event.
After the collapse of the recent SAARC summit, the BRICS summit and BIMSTEC event have assumed greater significance. India, followed by four other countries, had pulled out of the SAARC summit to be hosted by Pakistan over the issue of cross-border terrorism.