NNA - State Duma Deputy Chairman Alexander Babakov said on Thursday that the BRICS alliance is working on creating its currency and is scheduled to present ideas on the matter at the organization's forthcoming summit in South Africa in august this year. 

"The transition to settlements in national currencies is the first step. The next one is to provide the circulation of digital or any other form of a fundamentally new currency in the nearest future. I think that at the BRICS [leaders' summit], the readiness to realize this project will be announced, such works are underway," Babakov said on the sidelines of the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership for Development and Growth Business Forum.

Babakov further did not dismiss the possibility of the formation of a single BRICS currency. According to him, the currency would be secured not just by gold, but also by other groups of products, including rare-earth elements of the soil. 

Earlier today, China and Brazil struck a deal to ditch the US dollar in their bilateral transactions, which is expected to reduce investment costs and develop economic ties between the two countries.

The agreement between the Asian superpower and Latin America's largest economy - the mutual top trading partners -  is a new financial and political strike against the green banknotes as more countries, with the growing geopolitical and economical influence of the East, are paving the way to distance themselves from the US politically-oriented currency.

Earlier in January, both nations reached a preliminary deal on the matter that was finalized in a Brazil-China Business Seminar in China on Wednesday, which Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was scheduled to take part in but failed to attend due to emergency health issues.

On another note, South Africa's international relations minister Naledi Pandor said today that her country will not cut ties with Russia as per the wishes of third parties or countries. 

She further said that her country has currently been granted the BRICS presidency for this year in January and she was looking forward to further collaborating with Russia within the BRICS framework. --- Al- Mayadeen

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