On 24 August, Mr Denis Manturov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, chaired a Meeting of the BRICS Industry Ministers via videoconference.
The Meeting saw the presence of Mr Carlos Da Costa, Special Secretary for Productivity, Employment and Competitiveness at the Ministry of Economy, the Federative Republic of Brazil, Mr Som Parkash, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry of the Republic of India, Mr Yaqing Xiao, Minister of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China, Mr Ebrahim Patel, Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition of the South African Republic and Mr Li Yong, Director-General of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).
The experts discussed priorities in the development of industrial cooperation in the BRICS countries during the coronavirus pandemic, including joint development and the broad introduction of green technologies and technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Mr Denis Manturov presented Russia’s initiative on creating a Center for Industrial Competencies for the BRICS Countries as a new stage in developing cooperation under the Partnership on New Industrial (Digital) Revolution (PartNIR).
“The Center would speed up the development and integration of leading-edge technologies. Industrial companies, branch associations and the related government bodies in our countries will become the ultimate beneficiaries of the Center. In fact, it will become a new point of growth in BRICS industrial potential and will strengthen the position of this grouping in the global market,” said Mr Manturov. He also noted that UNIDO could play a special role in these efforts.
“We invited the UNIDO Secretariat to participate in the development of competencies in the most advanced high-tech sectors. It is possible to do this with Minimal involvement of resources will be required with the creation of a virtual project office. UNIDO expertise would allow all of us to better identify the key trends on the global industrial agenda and find niches we can fill,” Mr Manturov said.
Among the priority areas of the Center's activities is an exchange of experience on best available practices on the industrial track, the development of joint startups, including with the involvement of the New Development Bank, and an efficient search for partners for industrial companies. In addition, the Center would be designed to develop a dialogue on technical regulation and standardization, including the adoption of mechanisms on recognizing documents on conformity assessment.
“In this area, Russia is currently upgrading a network of 36 test laboratories for assessing the conformity of products to international standards. As a result, they would be able to make a comprehensive assessment of products to establish whether they meet the requirements of the targeted markets. We are interested in involving specialists from the BRICS countries in this work and see great potential for cooperation with our partners in this area,” Mr Manturov said.