BRICS bank will reduce Western dominance: China media

SHANGHAI, July 16 (AFP) :  Chinese media on Wednesday hailed the creation of the BRICS development bank, to be based in Shanghai, blaming Western countries and multilateral agencies for flaws in the global financial system.

At a summit in Brazil, the BRICS group of emerging economic powers -- which also includes Russia, India, China and South Africa -- on Tuesday created the New Development Bank to finance infrastructure projects.

China's official news agency Xinhua cited Western dominance of the international financial system as the motivation.

"The plans of the emerging-market bloc of BRICS to establish a development bank usher in a long-awaited and helpful alternative to the Western-dominated institutes in global finance," Xinhua said in an editorial.

An opinion piece in the Global Times newspaper, known for its nationalistic editorial stance, said competition from the BRICS bank could prompt the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to carry out much-needed internal reforms.

"BRICS countries have to blaze a new trail to reduce losses as well as safeguard interests," wrote Liu Zongyi, a research fellow at the government-linked Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

"Loans from the World Bank are not able to meet the demands of the developing nations... The IMF also failed to play an active role in stabilising the turbulent emerging financial markets during the global financial crisis," he said.