The leaders of five of the world's fast-rising powers agreed Thursday to move toward creating a new development bank that would improve access to capital for poor nations. Accusing current international institutions of failing to lift up poor countries, the BRICS group — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — asked their finance ministers to investigate setting up a development bank like the World Bank or Asian Development Bank that they would back. The also agreed to boost business and trade in their own local currencies. “Institutions of global political and economic governance created more than six decades ago have not kept pace with the changing world,” India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the gathering. “Developing countries need access to capital.” The five countries represent 45 percent of the world's population, a quarter of its land mass and a quarter of its economy at $13.5 trillion. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, underscoring the importance of the emerging world's biggest economies with his own trip to India, welcomed the idea of a new development bank. “We will be looking forward to working with it to see how we can leverage one another's strength,” he said while traveling in the eastern state of Orissa, according to the Press Trust of India. South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said the bank could “help us create good jobs.” The countries will again look at the proposal at their next summit in South Africa next year. Experts have questioned whether the bloc represents no more than just promising markets and financial opportunities.
