Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, in an interview in Sputnik on Feb. 25, discussed the ongoing preparations on a new BRICS financial infrastructure that will especially be the focus of the organization during Russia’s presidency of BRICS this year.
“The agenda that we will promote within the framework of our chairmanship is the improvement of the financial, settlement and payment system, which, in the current conditions of fragmentation, would be convenient and safe for trade participants within the BRICS. The system [that will be] outside of politics, independent of Western unfriendly infrastructure,” Siluanov said. After Russia was barred from using the SWIFT international transactions system in the wake of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, efforts have been underway to find alternative financial infrastructure which is not so politically volatile.
