VENTURE AFRICA – The BRICS economic bloc would certainly launch a development bank that would rival Western-backed development financial institutions (DFI), the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, citing South Africa’s finance minister.

“It’s done,” South China Morning Post quoted Pravin Gordhan as saying after meeting with his counterparts from Brazil, Russia, India and China.

“We made very good progress, the leaders will announce the details,” Gordhan reportedly added just hours before a summit in the South African port city of Durban.

This would be the first time since the first BRICS summit four years ago that the gathering of these emerging economies had replaced talk for more practical action.

The financial institution would possibly put more attention on infrastructure financing. In Africa, infrastructure spending has always been an exact problem to seven decades of dominance by the World Bank.

The BRICS make 25 percent of world GDP and 40 percent of the world’s people.

Meanwhile, it is understood that the BRICS Development Bank could become a World Bank in coming years because of the ever- increasing impact of emerging countries.

Jim O’Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, told India’s The Economic Times: “If, in fact, the BRICS bank is announced, this will be the beginning of an institution that sort of becomes a World Bank for their huge sphere of influence.”

According to China Daily, BRICS, was originally called ‘BRIC’ by O’Neill in 2001 before the inclusion of South Africa in 2010.

The bank could assist in stimulating BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries’ trade, O’Neill reportedly said, adding the new group’s economic success was much bigger than political.