BRICS countries are expected to come up with initiatives that will progressively enable them take more control of the global economy, East Africa's top financial analyst Aly-Khan Satchu has said.

One of the expected outcomes of the 2-day BRICS Summit in Durban South Africa will be the approval of the proposed BRICS Development Bank.

According to Satchu, the bank is one of the strategies BRICS will use to get more global influence as their voting powers in the existing global financial institutions is lower compared to west's.

"The challenge the BRICS faces is that they are such a big player but do not have the position in these big global institutions particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB)," he said in an interview with Xinhua ahead of the BRICS Summit.

"So we are likely to see growing conflicts with BRICS wanting more voting power. It is something that will continue for the next few years. But essentially you have to follow the money. Increasingly the whole world is relying on the fire power of the money that BRICS countries have for their own economies and with time you will see BRICS wrestle some control of these big institutions," said Satchu who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Rich Management, a financial consultancy company.

He said one of the key issues to be discussed at the summit will be how BRICS can increase their influence in the global economy. In particular, he said, the idea of creating a BRICS development bank is a step forward.

"If you look at who is funding the world today including the United States, it is the BRICS countries. And therefore they want to take more control of how they influence the world and if the west does not allow them to take control of existing financial institutions, they will look for other vehicles in which they can be in control," said Satchu.

BRICS countries have already made available capital to the west to take care of the economic crisis. He sees the next level of debate being whether the way western capitalism is run is the right way. "BRICS will be saying to the world that there is another ways which may be the rights way. China runs top down economy well organized for 1.3 billion people. So there is an opportunity to look at different economic models," he said.

He said one of the biggest benefits of BRICS to Africa is that the organization has given the continent another set of customers. "BRICS countries understand where African economies are coming from in a better way than the west did understand 10 years ago. The west surely understands now surely because it has seen what is happening," said Satchu.

"BRICS is a big win for Africa in attracting investments from China, Brazil, Russia and India. The engagement has serious traction already. The more partners we have, the more multilateral we are, the better we are going to be," he added.

He said Africa remains the next frontier and expect countries like China to deepen their investments in the continent.

"We are talking about 2 billion consumers by 2050. We are talking about fantastic energy prices as more countries continue to discover oil, coal and natural gas. There are so many opportunities. I expect foreign direct investment to increase tremendously. We need to create value in our primary commodities. We need to create manufacturing jobs to create more employment opportunities,' said Satchu.

He said Africa should encourage the BRICS countries to transfer some of their manufacturing activities to Africa continent. "I expect real momentum towards this possibility," said Satchu.

He said decision by Chinese President Xi Jinping to make his trip into Africa among his first since assuming presidency indicates that the country is ready to further deepen its relations with Africa.

China-Africa relations started nearly 600 years ago along the Indian Ocean, and increasingly the same ocean is now assuming the same role of being most important trading route for China-Africa.

"China-Africa relationship is very important and most Africans want to see it strengthened," said Satchu. "We want to see more engagement with BRICS. We want to see more soft power that will result in the success of the African continent," he said. Endi

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