South Africa, being the current chair of the BRICS group, will be hosting the summit in Johannesburg on Aug. 22-24. Sooklal explained that the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will discuss using national currencies and reducing reliance on the US dollar.
He was quoted by Reuters as saying, "There’s never been talk of a BRICS currency, it’s not on the agenda … What we have said and we continue to deepen is trading in local currencies and settlement in local currencies."
Recently, Russian news outlet RT claimed that the BRICS nations will announce a gold-backed common currency at the August summit.
However, Leslie Maasdorp, vice president and chief financial officer of the New Development Bank, also known as the BRICS Bank, stated that the economic bloc has no immediate plan to launch a currency to compete with the US dollar.
Noting the distinction between de-dollarization efforts and the creation of a common BRICS currency, he stressed, “The development of anything alternative is indeed a medium to long-term ambition.”
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov have championed the concept of a common currency as the BRICS nations endeavor to counter Western dominance in global finance, Bitcoin.com reported.
This followed heavy financial sanctions the West placed on Russia after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
The US and its allies have frozen about $300 billion in Russian central bank assets, prompting many countries to seek alternatives to the USD.