On March 27, 2013, the 5th BRICS Summit opened in Durban, South Africa. Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Jacob Zuma, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attended the meeting, expressing their opinions and positions under the theme of "Partnership for Development, Integration and Industrialization".
During the summit, Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech entitled Work Together for Common Development. In his speech, Xi stressed that a stronger cooperation among BRICS members would not only benefit the peoples of those countries but also benefit democratization in international relations, which are the common aspirations and responsibilities of all. Xi continued to express his confidence that new progress would be made in deepening practical cooperation and strengthening partnership among BRICS members.
The BRICS members should firmly safeguard international fairness and justice and maintain world peace and stability, Xi stressed. No matter how the international landscape changes, the bloc should always be committed to peace, development, cooperation and win-win results. No matter how the international pattern changes, the bloc should always be committed to equality, democracy and inclusiveness. No matter how the global governance changes, the bloc should be actively engaged.
Xi also pointed out that the BRICS members should work vigorously to promote the establishment of global development partnership and promote common prosperity of all countries. Members should do their best to develop their economy and improve the livelihood of the people. They should strengthen the coordinating role of macroeconomic policies, reform international monetary and financial systems and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation. They should join hands in helping plan international development agenda and realizing more balanced development of the world. The BRICS grouping, closely tied with partnership, should endeavor to promote cooperation in many fields, particularly in trade, finance, infrastructure construction and personnel exchanges. They also need to jointly support Africa's efforts in seeking robust growth, speeding up integration and realizing industrialization.
Xi continued to say that the BRICS members should deepen their mutually beneficial cooperation and seek mutual benefit and win-win results. They should strengthen political mutual trust and people-to-people friendship, work together to boost industrialization, informatization, urbanization and modern agriculture. They should enhance their coordination and cooperation within the frameworks of the United Nations, G20 and international economic and financial organizations. They should actively push ahead with the establishment BRICS Development Bank and Contingent Reserve Arrangement and accelerate practical cooperation in various fields.
China, Xi emphasized, would continue to strengthen its cooperation with other BRICS members for stronger economic growth, improved cooperation framework and more fruitful cooperation with all BRICS members. By doing that, China would bring about tangible benefits to peoples of all BRICS members, thus contributing more to world peace and development.
While discussing issues of inclusive growth and global governance, Xi pointed out that under current situations, it is of high priority that countries should together tackle the downside risks of the world economy on the one hand and speed up the transformation of economic growth mode and pursue new economic growth points on the other. The maintenance of world peace and security not only requires stability and development of individual countries to safeguard peace but also requires all countries work hard with the international community to seek security on the basis of equality, promote security through development and realize security through cooperation. To improve global economic governance that will benefit the economic development of each member needs more representativeness and say of the BRICS members. In order to deepen practical cooperation, the most urgent task to do is to implement the cooperation projects that have been agreed on.
When talking about issues of developing partnership for development, integration and industrialization, Xi pointed out that the BRICS should march toward the ambitious goals of establishing a broad integrated market, multi-tier logistics, extensive connection across land , navy and air and wide-ranging cultural exchanges. The BRICS members should strengthen the coordinating role of macroeconomic policies and, through coordination, push forward cooperation among developing countries and as a whole promote world economic recovery and growth in the end. The members should focus on innovative growth by exploring and creating new economic competitiveness. They should enhance cooperation in infrastructure construction so as to be better connected with one another. They should properly deal with the relationship between cooperation and competition so that mutual benefit and win-win results can be achieved.
Before ending his speech, Xi noted that this summit sends a positive signal of seeking peace, working for development, promoting cooperation and aiming at win-win results among the BRICS members, which is in keeping with the trends of the time. Continued BRICS cooperation would be conducive to a more balanced world economy, more democracy in international relations and better global economic governance.
South African President Jacob Zuma, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also spoke at the summit. They stated that the there are still many uncertainties in the world economy as the negative impacts of the international financial crisis are being felt at a deeper level and the euro debt crisis is spreading. The BRICS members should consolidate unity and cooperation. By giving their complementary advantages into full play, they could provide more trade, investment and financial opportunities among members so that they could work together to cope with various risks and challenges. They should try to sustain the inclusive economic growth and stimulate vigorous, sustainable and balanced growth of the world economy. In the meantime, the BRICS grouping should strengthen their coordination and cooperation within the frameworks of the United Nations and G20, defend world peace and stability, carry forward reforms in international monetary and financial systems and actively participate in the improvement of global economic governance.
Zuma talked about the situation in Africa and the vision of African integration. All the leaders expressed their willingness to strengthen cooperation and partnership with Africa and to help to promote the development of the continent.
Leaders of member countries decided to establish BRICS Development Bank and to prepare for the creation of a Contingent Reserve Arrangement.
After the summit, leaders of the five nations attended the signing ceremony of cooperation documents including Multilateral Agreement on Cooperation and Co-financing for Sustainable Development, Multilateral Agreement on Infrastructure Co-Financing for Africa and Declaration on the Establishment of BRICS Business Council. The summit also worked out Durban Declaration and its Action Plan. It was also decided at the summit that the next summit would be held in 2014 in Brazil.
Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu and Yang Jiechi also attended the summit.