BRICS finance ministers, central bank governors to meet in Russia in Oct

MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors will hold their final meeting of 2024 in Russia in early October, the Russian Finance Ministry reported.

The first such meeting in the year of Russia's BRICS chairmanship was held in Sao Paolo, Brazil on Tuesday, where Finance Minister Anton Siluanov presented proposals to improve the international monetary and financial system and create independent infrastructure to "strengthen the autonomy and financial sovereignty of developing countries."

"Financial infrastructure should be accessible to all and independent of the will of individual countries. Otherwise we face the artificial creation of barriers to trade, investment and technology even in transactions among third countries. This leads to the slowdown of global economic growth," the ministry reported Siluanov as saying.

Russia's Finance Ministry, together with partners in the organization, will prepare a report on improving the international monetary and financial system for the leaders of BRICS countries by the end of the year, with a list of initiatives and recommendations. This report will lead to practical initiatives, one of which could be the multilateral digital settlements and payment platform BRICS Bridge, the ministry said.

In the year of Russia's chairmanship, three meetings at the level of deputy finance ministers will be held to work out agenda issues in detail, the ministry said.