BRICS youth summit initiatives to be submitted to Ufa summit of BRICS leaders

KAZAN, July 6. /TASS/. Initiatives advanced by the first BRICS youth summit in Kazan will be submitted to the consideration of the BRICS leaders at their summit meeting in Ufa due to be held on July 9-10, Sergei Pospelov, the chief of Russia’s federal agency for the affairs of the youth, said on Monday. "We have just finished a session, where participants in sectoral panel groups informed about their initiatives to be submitted to the participants of the big BRICS summit in Ufa," he said. He said participants in the BRICS youth summit had voiced a number of initiatives on how to strengthen cooperation between the five countries in the spheres of politics, economy, education, culture, science, and information exchanges. These proposals included initiatives "to set up an international network of businessmen and work out a roadmap to encourage the development of youth businesses," to establish a forum of BRICS businesswomen, to set up a youth society for research, to "establish an energy association to promote youth cooperation in the energy sector and organize a meeting in 2015." Initiatives in the area of information exchanges included the establishment of an independent news agency of the BRICS countries, the establishment of BRICS grants for young scientists, masters and bachelors, the simplification of visa issuance procedures for students from the BRICS countries. It was also suggested that BRICS youth forums be organized on a regular basis. The first BRICS youth summit was officially closed in Kazan on Monday. It was attended by more than 250 young leaders from the BRICS countries. Established in June 2006, the BRIC association originally included four countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China to be expanded to the BRICS format after South Africa joined it in 2011. The first official summit of the association was held in Russia’s Yekaterinburg in June 2009. Ever since, summit meetings have been held annually in each of the member states alternatively. The latest summit took place in Brazil. Russia took over presidency in the BRICS from April 1, 2015. Russia is also presiding the BRICS Business Council in a period from April 2015 to April 2016. One of the goals of Russia’s presidency is to implement the agreements on the establishment of BRICS own financial institutions, namely the New Development Bank of BRICS (NDB) and Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The next BRICS summit will take place in Russia’s Ufa on July 8-9, 2015. The BRICS countries account for 26 percent of the entire Earth’s area and 42 percent of the Earth’s population. In 2013, the BRICS accounted for 16.1 percent of global trade, for 10.8 percent of global defence spending, and for 40.2 percent of global production of traditional fuels. Read more