A Crucial Contribution to Ideating the Reform of the International Monetary System

By Yaroslav Lissovolik

Despite the generally subdued reaction to the BRICS common currency project coming from the bloc’s official circles, the academic discussions on the subject of a new reserve currency continue and elicit a greater degree of granularity on what needs to be done and importantly how the project could be technically implemented. Such is the crucial contribution coming from Brazil’s leading economist Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., who presented his latest Valdai club report titled “A path to a new reserve currency” at the end of June 2026.

The report in particular argues persuasively that none of the single currencies by themselves can provide a solution to the challenges faced by today’s global economy. What is hence proposed is a collective approach that brings together some of the BRICS and other Global South economies in launching a new reserve currency. And while the difficulties of such an undertaking – whether political or economic – may be substantial, the author sees such an effort as being central to addressing some of the glaring imbalances inherent in the current international monetary system.

Building on the discussions that have taken place in the past several years, including the important contributions of Alexei Mozhin (in whose memory the report is dedicated), the report weighs the merits of creating a new unit of account as one of the initial steps in the launching the new reserve currency. Such a step is not fraught with technical difficulties and could be easily implemented by the BRICS+/Global South economies without the prior preconditions of increasing mutual trade turnover or liberalizing the capital accounts of BRICS members. In order to ensure credibility in the new currency Nogueira Batista Jr. proposes a currency basket mechanism as well as the creation of an issuing bank – the Global South Bank (GSB). The latter would have to commit not to use the new currency as a weapon or sanctions instrument.

Importantly, the report underscores that the new currency would not replace the national currencies of participating economies, but would rather complement them. The author openly acknowledges some of the weaknesses of the proposed monetary architecture, including the lack of confidence in the sponsoring countries, China’s size and possible imbalances in the governance of the GSB as well as risks of a Western backlash. Both the report itself and the Valdai club discussion underscored the importance of China’s stance with respect to the project on the new reserve currency.

The views of experts participating in the Valdai discussion suggest that a shift in China’s position on the project could be the single most important factor in rendering it viable in the medium- to long-term. For the time-being the focus in China appears to be directed more towards advancing the yuan internationally, with next year’s chairmanship of China in BRICS likely to further shed light on the international priorities espoused by the bloc’s largest economic heavyweight.

The importance of the latest contribution coming from Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. is that it addresses the issue of a new reserve currency in an open and comprehensive way that fills the gaps that in the past several years continued to accompany the discussions of the BRICS common currency project. In many ways, it is also a contribution that provides a novel perspective to the debate on the international monetary system – as argued by the report’s author, “the approach suggested here drives at something new in the history of international monetary arrangements, while at the same time remaining grounded on the realities and practicalities of current international monetary arrangements. Hitherto, as mentioned, we have had national currencies (or a regional one, the euro) playing an international role on top of their domestic roles. But what we need is an international currency that plays no domestic role”.

PS: As an aside and a minor artistic digression, I would also like to briefly touch upon the name and the logo of the common BRICS currency. In terms of the name, the symbolism of all five currencies of the BRICS-5 core economies starting with the letter R should not be cast so lightly aside – such rare if not unique symbolism is something has generated a fascination with the R5 project across the Global South and the broader world economy, making the BRICS common currency the single most sought after issue on BRICS as a bloc by the wider public (judging by internet search and public queries related to BRICS), with the R5 name being the most popular and widely used reference to the BRICS common currency project. Perhaps even more importantly, from a cultural point of view, such symbolism of cross-country commonalities is very much engrained and cherished in the history and the value code of BRICS and its members.

Furthermore, with the expansion of BRICS, even more members of the club now have currencies starting with the letter R (Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia) – in this case the name of the potential common currency rather than being R5 (a name that will pass into history as the starting point of the BRICS common currency discussion) may be upgraded to R+, something that would symbolize the openness of the BRICS+ and the R+ platforms as well as the evolution path of the bloc.

With respect to the logo of the BRICS currency (which in most cases tends to be confined to one symbol), the letter R becomes an uncontested candidate to reflect past history and the origin of the common BRICS currency project. The revision of the name of the currency to R+ would suggest that the logo would need to reflect the letter and the plus sign in a combined, symbiotic way. The resulting image produced with the help of Grok presents the plus sign as transitioning into an X (multiplication) sign, reflecting how the R+ project and the BRICS+ expansion may advance multiplier effects across the Global South in terms of growth and the monetization of South-South economic cooperation.

In the end, symbolism matters for BRICS in multiple areas (the very name “BRICs” is an acronym that was meant to be a symbol) and nowhere is it more powerful than in the case of R5/R+. Currency logos are ultimately symbols that need to encapsulate the goal and the history of the currency project, delivering a value projection from the past into the future. And despite all the current headwinds with respect to the BRICS common currency efforts, the symbolism and the enormous popular appeal across the Global South will make the R5/R+ project one of the landmark legacies of the current efforts of the BRICS+ bloc to transform the global economy.

Yaroslav Lissovolik is the Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.