CGTN's Aljosa Milenkovic sat down with Anton Siluanov, Russia's Minister of Finance, to talk about how BRICS is working to expand depoliticized economic cooperation. 

ALJOSA MILENKOVIC, Moscow "Anton Germanovich, thank you very much for talking to CGTN. It is evident that many countries around the world want to join the BRICS. Why's that?"

ANTON SILUANOV, Russian Minister of Finance "The BRICS is an association of the largest countries today. We even see that the combined economy of the BRICS countries has become larger than the economy of the G7 group."

"And the dynamics of this growth are increasing. That's why we can say that, from an economic point of view, this is a community of countries that are developing rapidly."

"They are increasing their trade volumes, and what is important is that this economic cooperation is happening on a depoliticized basis, based on mutual benefits for the countries."

"This cooperation is outside politics, there is no dominance in it, there are no political or, of course, economic disagreements. And therefore, it can be said that this is a community of friendly countries that is aimed at improving the condition of its people and improving and increasing the development of their economic potential."

"We see that the situation with currencies such as the dollar and euro causes certain risks of freezing assets and termination of settlements, that is, confidence in such currencies is undermined."

"Therefore, within the framework of the BRICS association, we are looking for opportunities to create alternative types of settlements. First of all, of course, these are national currencies. And now the main emphasis in the development of trade relations is on the calculations of national currencies."

"Take, for example, settlements with China. Seventy percent of the work is in national currencies. We really see the possibilities of discussing the creation of unified payment systems."

"This may be an accounting unit for the BRICS member countries. Just as the Euro is an accounting unit in the EU as an alternative to the dollar, which can be used to express value for goods, commodities, and benchmarks for some goods."

"In order not to depend on a single currency or that issuing centre, which under unknown circumstances and volumes issues cash."

"In the BRICS, we are talking about the possibility of creating a certain accounting unit. This is not a single currency, I say right away, because there is no question about a single currency at this moment."