00:00Luis Augusto de Castro Neves is president of the Brazil-China Business Council and Brazil's former ambassador to China.
00:08The expansion of BRICS, the number of countries which are now members of BRICS, is a positive feature.
00:17As a matter of fact, we are more interested in complementarity rather than competition among ourselves, the new BRICS countries.
00:28The first step should be to enhance, to further deepen the cooperation and the relationship between BRICS countries, as a
00:38matter of fact.
00:39We are not competing with ourselves. We are joining our efforts.
00:44We are trying to find common business, common goals, common purposes, so that we can provide better conditions for BRICS
00:58insertion in the international economy as a whole.
01:02One of the issues on the agenda is greater use of national currencies in trade between BRICS members.
01:09I wonder, for countries like Brazil, how much difference could that actually make in practice?
01:19Greater use of national currencies can provide companies with additional options.
01:25For instance, for Brazilian and Chinese businesses, for example, transactions are in reais and renminbi.
01:33They can potentially reduce some transaction costs and facilitate trade and investment when market conditions make these alternatives more attractive.
01:45This should be viewed as diversification rather than replacement.
01:49We are not trying to replace any currency in our trade.
01:54As a matter of fact, for instance, U.S. dollar is a very important presence in international trade.
02:01We are not trying to replace the dollar.
02:03We are trying to expand the possibility of other currencies being part of this game as well.
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