MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Putin says Euro zone has sufficient resources and does not need BRIC aid

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the crisis-hit Euro zone had enough resources to resolve its own troubles without support from Russia and fellow BRIC countries.

As concern rise over weak growth and plunging stock markets, officials from the so-called BRIC emerging economies, including heavyweights China, Brazil and India, have floated plans to support Europe by using their currency reserves to buy bonds and help solve the euro area debt crisis.

But Putin comments were a reminder of scepticism over the plan in Russia -- holder of the world's third largest gold and foreign exchange reserves, which has over two-fifths of its 517 billion dollars in foreign reserves invested in euro-zone sovereign debt.

“The big European economies have enough resources to resolve their own problems,” Putin said, while welcoming a plan by Germany and France to recapitalise Europe's troubled banks as a “positive signal.”

“I do not think that the BRIC countries can play any particular kind of role,” Putin said in an interview with Chinese state media during a visit to Beijing.

Putin, who has announced plans to return to the presidency in 2012, also hinted that US Federal Reserves' purchases of treasuries were “bad” for the country's fiscal discipline, saying the United States was profiting from the dollar's “monopoly” as the main reserve currency.

“The Federal Reserve is buying treasuries: that is simply printing money. I do not want to make any judgements, maybe our US colleagues know better, but in the past that is not how they advised us to behave,” Putin said.

Asked to clarify his statement this summer describing the United States as a “parasite” on the global economy, Putin said: “I did not say that the US is being parasitic on the world economy. It’s being parasitic with the dollar's monopoly position”.
Russian president watered down Brazil and China initiatives