Following a bilateral meeting with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Ufa, Russia, President Dilma Rousseff said that the 7th BRICS Summit, ongoing now, “will be a special moment for the bloc, which becomes well-established with the creation of the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement.” With Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as members, BRICS accounts for a fifth of the world's economy and 40% of the world's population.

At the meeting, Rousseff urged advancing trade between Brazil and Russia, which has recognized potential to grow. “We must keep working to achieve a turnover of $10 billion,” she said. According to the president, Brazil's logistics infrastructure program is “a unique opportunity to attract Russian businesses, which have considerable expertise in ports and railways.”

President Putin noted that trade between BRICS countries grew 15% in 2014 and said he was confident that the trend will continue. According to the Russian leader, the Summit is an opportunity to show the Western world that Moscow is not alone despite the country's suspension from G8 in retaliation against the annexation of Crimea in March 2014.

The setting for the 7th BRICS Summit is the slopes of the Ural Mountains, one of the most beautiful locations in Russia. On Thursday (July 9), the event will discuss the agreement on the bloc's New Development Bank (NDB), which will be based in Shanghai, China, and chaired by Indian banker K.V. Kamath, with Brazilian economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Junior as deputy chair. The meeting will also discuss economic and trade cooperation initiatives within the bloc, in such sectors as energy and infrastructure.

By creating the NDB, BRICS countries are hoping to reduce the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank hegemony in the global financial system and open up doors for other currencies than dollars in international trade. The new bank starts operations in 2016 with a start-up capital of $50 billion, contributed by the member countries by equal amounts. The resources will help fund infrastructure projects in BRICS countries, but loans may be extended to developing countries as well.

On Thursday (9), on the sidelines of the Summit events, President Rousseff will meet with presidents Xi Jinping (China); Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan); Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus); and India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modri.