BRICS: Dead or Alive?

Speakers:

• Sergei Aleksashenko, former Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia and former Deputy Governor of the Russian Central Bank;
• Ken Rapoza, journalist and Forbes contributor;
• Georgy Toloraya, Executive Director of the Russian National Committee on BRICS Research.

As leaders prepare for the 7th annual BRICS summit, to be held July 7-8 in Ufa, Russia, a number of doubts have arisen about the future outlook for the group.

Please join the Center on Global Interests for a discussion on the current state of the BRICS and the potential trajectory of its development.  This event will mark the release of CGI’s newest publication: a pro/contra look at the viability of the BRICS, authored by Sergei Aleksashenko, Ken Rapoza and Georgy Toloraya.

CGI Program Director Konstantin Avramov will give opening remarks and moderate the discussion.

Light refreshments will be served. This event is on the record.

About the Speakers:

Sergey Aleksashenko, a former scholar-in-residence in the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Economic Policy Program, is currently residing in Washington, D.C. as an independent consultant for Private Solutions LLC. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Russia’s Deputy Minister of Finance, responsible for macroeconomic and taxation policy. While working for both the Russian central bank and the Ministry of Finance, Aleksashenko was in charge of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Aleksashenko was first deputy chairman of the Russian Central Bank, where he was responsible for monetary and currency policy from 1995 to 1998. He served as deputy director general and managing director of Interros, a Russian private investment company, from 2000 to 2004 and as head of Merrill Lynch’s Moscow office from 2006 to 2008. The author of numerous articles on Russia’s economy, he is also the author of Battle for the Ruble (Alma Mater, Moscow, 1999; Vremya, 2008).

Ken Rapoza is a journalist and contributor at Forbes, covering business and investing in emerging markets. Rapoza has written about Brazil pre-Lula and post-Lula, and spent the last five years covering all aspects of the country for Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. Before 2005 he covered the nation’s politics for the Boston Globe and The Nation. Rapoza’s current work focuses primarily on Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Georgy Toloraya is a Russian diplomat with years of experience in Asian affairs, having served two postings in North Korea (1977–80 and 1984-7), then in South Korea as a Deputy Chief of the Russian Embassy (1993-8) and later as the senior Russian Foreign Ministry official (Deputy Director-General) in charge of the Korean Peninsula (1998–2003). He later worked as the Consul General of Russia in Sydney, Australia (2003–2007). He has published a number of articles and books on East Asia, collaborated as a part-time researcher with noted Russian academic institutes including the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), and teaches Asian politics at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). In 2007-2008 he was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.