DHAKA: Leaders of the Brics group of emerging powers huddled on Tuesday in Brazil to launch a new development bank and a reserve fund seen as counterweights to Western-led financial institutions.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff welcomed the leaders of Russia, India, China and South Africa in Fortaleza on Tuesday before expanded talks with South American leaders the next day in Brasilia.

Chinese president Xi Jinping met ahead of the summit with India’s new Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi, who described their first face-to-face talk as a ‘very fruitful meeting’, reports The Straits Times.

For Russian president Vladimir Putin, who visited Argentina and Cuba before coming to Brazil, the trip gives him a chance to hammer home his calls for a ‘multipolar’ world amid tensions with the West over the Ukraine crisis.

BDST: 2145 HRS, JUL 15, 2014