BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement Operational: Arun Jaitley

Washington: A crucial economic mechanism to help BRICS member nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - deal with economic crisis, like balance of payments pressures, has become operational, said finance minister Arun Jaitley today. The Contingent Reserve Arrangement or CRA was declared operational, after being signed more than a year ago, in 2015.

Mr Jaitley said that central banks of member states are "fully ready to carry out" all transactions in support of other member states. He made the announcement at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The CRA was established last year with the aim of providing support through additional liquidity and other means to BRICS countries at a time of economic crisis. It marks an important step in economic cooperation between member countries, and implies a commitment from each member that it will support the other during crisis.

During the meeting, BRICS finance ministers also welcomed a decision to set up a network of central bank research units to implement the CRA. They also agreed to discuss the modalities of such a network during the BRICS summit to be held in Goa, later this month.

Mr Jaitley also chaired two sessions of the Commonwealth Finance Ministers' meeting - first on the 'Economics of Climate Change and Financing Climate Adaptation and Mitigation' and the second on 'International Taxation - a Commonwealth Conversation Around the Panama Papers'.

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During the meeting India's Bank of Baroda signed a memorandum with the Standard Chartered Bank for opening a trade finance facility. This is expected to make available up to 100 million dollars of finance over a period of three years.

As part of the voluntary contributions, India has promised more than a million pounds to the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation.

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Mr Jaitley also held separate bilateral meetings with the British Secretary of State, US Treasury Secretary, CEO of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the finance ministers of Bhutan and Bangladesh.