OF the emerging economies in the world, BRICS nations, namely,Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are increasingly taking centerstage with their newfound economic and political heft.

Altogether they boast a gross domesticproduct of US$14 trillion, accounting for more than half of the world economicoutput. Over the past decade, their total trade jumped tenfold, with anaggregate growth rate of 28 percent.

As their economies become ever moreinterdependent, and their common interests overlapped, especially inconfronting global challenges, cooperation in the BRICS club has flourished. Asummit between national leaders is held every year since 2009 and this year ittakes place in New Delhi, India, from today to tomorrow, with discussions onsuch topics as sustainable development and deeper collaboration within thegrouping.

On the eve of President Hu Jintao'sparticipation in the summit, Fudan University in Shanghai organized a seminaron Friday on the role of BRICS in global governance.

In the early days since the coinage of theterm BRIC (which became BRICS in 2011 with South Africa's entry), it generatedfew ripples beyond the financial punditry. But as the countries' respectiveeconomies mature, together they begin to take on the trade rules set bydeveloped Western countries.

Although the stalled Doha round of tradetalks is disappointing, it has achieved breakthroughs in securing US and EUcompromises on reducing agricultural subsidies, Sun Zhenyu, China's firstambassador to the World Trade Organization, said at the Fudan seminar.

Under pressure from developing nations, theBRICS in particular, the United States promised to axe its agriculturalsubsidies by 70 percent and the EU, by 80 percent. The deep cuts are proof ofthe BRICS' growing clout, he added.

In addition to trade, the BRICS are astrong advocate for reform of big financial institutions like the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, in which the developing world isperennially under-represented.

BRICS nations saw some gains in theirvoting shares in IMF in 2010. However, its existing structure, and that of theWorld Bank, remains unfair to less developed nations. So there is a possibilitythat BRICS can pick their own candidates for the top jobs at theseinstitutions, Yashwant Sinha, ex-finance and foreign minister of India, toldthe seminar.

BRICS countries have largely emerged fromthe 2008 financial crisis on top, and both their successes and failures areenlightening, said Sinha.

Indeed, BRICS' current priorities shouldinclude the analysis of financial, economic, political and social contexts andof new cooperation mechanisms, said Yaroslav Kuzminov, rector of The HigherSchool of Economics in Russia.

In light of the differences that exist inso diverse a bloc as BRICS, there ought to be mechanisms to promote unity andcoordination between member states when they speak on behalf of the developingworld, according to Sun.

Asked if BRICS can formulate its answer tosub-regional free trade pacts like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement(TPP), Sun said it may be premature to conceive such a proposition, but thepossibility can still be explored.

Sinha was much bolder in proposing ways todeepen the institutional layers of cooperation, such as creating a smallsecretariat and even a currency union to overcome the disadvantages of tradingin dollars, in which most commodities are priced.

The recent US threat to impose sanctions onIndia, China and South Korea for refusing to shrink their crude oil importsfrom Iran has necessitated, in Sinha's view, the need to initiatiate aresettlement regime for intra-BRICS trade using currencies other than dollars.