Foreign ministers from the BRICS group of major emerging economies have issued a joint statement calling for sweeping changes to the global financial system, including reforms at the IMF and World Bank, a wider role for local currencies in cross-border payments, and greater use of artificial intelligence.
The BRICS bloc — which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, along with newer member countries — used its latest foreign ministers’ meeting to push a broad agenda that challenges the dollar-centered international financial order. The group’s joint statement touched on several themes that have become central to emerging-market diplomacy in recent years.
On the institutional front, the ministers called for reforms at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Emerging economies have long argued that these institutions, built after World War Two, give too much voting power to wealthy Western nations and not enough to the Global South, which now accounts for a growing share of world output. Changing the governance of these bodies requires consensus among existing shareholders, making progress slow and politically difficult.
The statement also renewed the group’s push for local-currency payment systems — arrangements that let member countries settle trade without first converting to U.S. dollars. This idea has gained traction since Western sanctions cut Russia off from much of the dollar-based financial system. China has been the strongest advocate, promoting the yuan as an alternative settlement currency. In practice, shifting large volumes of global trade away from the dollar remains a long-term project, constrained by the dollar’s deep liquidity and widespread use in commodity markets.
The ministers highlighted a proposed financial risk laboratory to be based at GIFT City, India’s emerging international financial hub near Ahmedabad. The facility would focus on monitoring systemic financial risks across member economies — a sign of the bloc’s ambition to develop shared financial infrastructure. Artificial intelligence was also flagged as a priority area for cooperation, though the statement offered few specifics on how that collaboration would be structured.
Together, the agenda reflects a consistent pattern for BRICS summits and ministerial meetings: articulating an alternative vision for global economic governance while progress on concrete mechanisms remains gradual. Markets tend to watch BRICS statements for signals about de-dollarization momentum and multilateral financial reform, though actual shifts in reserve currency use or IMF voting shares typically move slowly.
How far BRICS members can translate these priorities into working systems — from payment rails to reformed multilateral institutions — will be a key theme to follow in months ahead.
