But
although India secured the bank's first presidency, and even as Prime
Minister Narendra Modi recently hailed "our capacity to set up global
institutions" for development, some government officials have questioned
whether they are handing the reins of global finance to China.
The
BRICS bank, formally titled the New Development Bank, was first
proposed in 2012 at a meeting among the leaders of Brazil, Russia,
India, China and South Africa (known by the acronym BRICS). Uneasy with
Western dominance of institutions such as the World Bank - where the
United States controls 15 percent of the votes - BRICS formalised the
new venture in July at a summit in Fortaleza, Brazil.
The
five founding countries agreed they would hold equal voting rights,
despite differences in economic heft: Like Russia, China's exports of
goods and services more than pay for its imports, while India has a
current account deficit. China's economy, meanwhile, is 28 times the
size of South Africa's.
Finance ministry sources say Chinese moves have triggered calls for India to expand its financial footprint [EPA]
