Sanctions Are Opportunity for Russia, BRICS to Have Their Own Currency, SA Firm Group Chairman Says
13:03 07.06.2024 (Updated: 13:17 07.06.2024)
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The United States and other countries have imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine, including restrictions on the country's financial and energy sectors.
Sanctions are "an opportunity for Russia and BRICS to have their own currency, to have their own platform of trading," Group Chairman of the South African Akani Properties company, Zamani Letjane, told Sputnik Africa.
"For the parties not to come up with their own currency or economic platform, that in itself is a deterrent," Letjane said on the sidelines of SPIEF2024.
He explained that it's "very expensive" to run a business without a BRICS currency or economic platform, because when a business, for example, grows beyond South Africa into African countries, a lot of money is spent on transaction costs.
"BRICS countries, they've got a nice size or number to have their own currency, to create their own platform on which they can trade," the group chairman said.
Speaking about why BRICS is an attractive bloc for African countries, he noted that "if, for instance, Nigeria join up, there will be no bigger economy than the BRICS countries in the world."
"In the entire world, you have enough buyers to sell all types of products that can be manufactured or developed in all those BRICS countries. So the market is there. [...] Once you have established a market, there's no way that any product can fail because you've got the market to sell or to consume a product," Letjane added.
To save on transaction costs, the bloc's countries also encourage trade in national currencies, which according to South Africa's sous-Sherpa to BRICS, Ben Joubert, is "a very important step towards gaining critical mass in the field of intra-BRICS trade."
