MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Western countries have pulled out more than $3.5 trillion over the last 10 years and $1.5 trillion from BRICS countries over the last three years as a mechanism to pressure the group, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Tuesday.
“International financial institutions are being used by the West more and more often as an instrument of pressure. Over the last 10 years, the total capital outflow from the BRICS economies has reached $3.5 trillion, and more than half of that total left over the last three years,” Patrushev said during a BRICS security meeting in Moscow.
Patrushev added "the creation of BRICS development bank is an important step in ensuring economic security of the BRICS countries."
Five major developing economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, making up BRICS — signed an agreement to establish the New Development Bank at a summit in Fortaleza, Brazil in July 2014. The BRICS member states also agreed to establish a $100-billion liquidity reserve to maintain the bank's financial stability.
The bank was designed, in part, as an alternative to Western global financial institutions.