"Unfortunately, the US dollar has been increasingly associated with narco-dollars, implying the close link between global financial flows and narco-money that is constantly being injected into the legal banking network in order to make up for critical liquidity shortages, which is destabilizing the global financial situation," Ivanov said during a BRICS ministerial meeting on countering drug trafficking.
Ivanov added that the New Development Bank operated by the BRICS countries could become a serious tool to normalize the global financial environment and move away from the US dollar's dominance.
The BRICS group of major emerging economies was established in 2010, when South Africa joined Brazil, Russia, India and China in what was previously known as the BRIC nations. The BRICS countries account for over 40 percent of the world's population and a combined economy of about $16 trillion, or almost 15 percent of global GDP.
