Leaders from the world's five emerging economic powerhouses Thursday began talks at a summit in New Delhi that was due to see pacts for boosting trade and the endorsement of plans for a joint development bank, dpa reported. Indian Premier Manmohan Singh, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and South African President Jacob Zuma opened talks at the fourth annual BRICS summit. Two pacts for enhancing intra-BRICS trade in the national currencies of BRICS countries would be signed during the summit, Indian foreign ministry officials said. The accords would enable credit facilities in local currencies for businesses and allow development banks to extend lines of credit to each other. The accords could boost intra-BRICS trade, which has been growing at 28 per cent annually and stood at 230 billion dollars in 2011.
