Dilma Rousseff meets with Vladimir Putin

Dilma Rousseff, the former Brazilian president and current head of the New Development Bank (also known as the BRICS bank), on Wednesday told Russian President Vladimir Putin that the “liquidity problem” faced by developing countries is currently being addressed.

“For the bank today, a few problems are being solved, such as liquidity,” she said, footage by state-owned Rossiya-24 channel shows. Their meeting was held at the outskirts of the second Russia-Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg. 

Ms. Rousseff added that the NDB must contribute to a “a more multipolar, multilateral system” and that it is committed to increasing business in local currencies, as opposed to the U.S. dollar.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who earlier this year led the effort to replace career diplomat Marcos Troyjo with Ms. Rousseff at the NDB leadership, has often reiterated calls for transactions between developing countries without the need for U.S. dollars as an intermediary currency. 

Back in January, Brazil and China signed an agreement to facilitate bilateral trade and investment by conducting transactions directly in Brazilian reais and Chinese yuan.

In a statement released before the meeting with Putin, the NDB stressed that “any speculations concerning the discussion of new operations of the NDB in Russia are unfounded.”

The statement also reads that one of the purposes of the meeting was “to ascertain the views” of Mr. Putin regarding the role of the NDB in the upcoming BRICS Summit, which will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa next month. Mr. Putin, however, will not personally attend the BRICS event.

Back in May, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Mr. Putin for war crimes in Ukraine. Since South Africa is a signatory to the ICC, this would compel its authorities to arrest him, although its government never publicly demonstrated the will to carry out such an arrest.

The office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation instead, “by mutual agreement.”

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