Brics summit: Banking on a new global order – WBNews

Brazil is hanging up its football boots after what has been seen as a hugely successful World Cup – perhaps not for the hosts but for the thousands of fans who came to watch the games here. Brazil’s hospitality will now move from the pitch to politics, as it prepares to welcome the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa to the sixth Brics summit in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza. It is an annual diplomatic meeting that brings together these regional leaders and economic powerhouses. And every time it happens, there are questions about whether the Brics grouping is anything more than a catchy acronym. “The Brics isn’t a trade bloc, it’s a group of letters making up a word and created by an economist,” says Jose Augusto de Castro, the president of the Brazilian Foreign Trade Association. “If Brazil exports to China, India or Russia, or vice versa, it doesn’t get any benefit – it’s just an informal grouping.” Low exports The Brics is more than just about economic relations – it’s also a way to diversify and hedge against western influenceHarold Trinkunas, Brookings Institution And far away from Fortaleza, in Brazil’s southern-most state of Rio Grande do Sul, on the border with Argentina, this observation seems fitting. Micheline Grings Twigger proudly shows me around Piccadilly, her family-owned shoe factory. The four production lines on the factory floor are buzzing with people cutting material, gluing heels and putting into boxes just some of the nine million…more detail