KINGSTON, Jamaica – Leaders of five of the world's emerging economic powers agreed Wednesday to create a development bank to help fund their US$4.5-trillion infrastructure plans – a direct challenge to the World Bank that they accuse of Western bias.
But the rulers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — known as the BRICS group — were unable to agree on some basic issues. Foreign Minister Pravin Gordhan of South Africa told reporters that there were “different views” about how much capital such a bank would need.
He said US$50 billion had been mentioned, an amount conference officials said would be seed capital shared equally between the five countries.
