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Cape Town - South Africa is undecided on buying euro bonds
and is not in the same position as its partners in the Brics grouping of
emerging market powers who can afford to use their foreign exchange reserves,
Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday.
"We (South Africa) don't have any position on that yet
until we understand what's going on and what's in our best interest at this
point in time," Gordhan told Reuters on the sidelines of a media briefing.
Finance ministers of Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa - the Brics group of emerging economies - are in preliminary talks
on increasing their holdings of euro-denominated bonds to help ease Europe's
debt crisis, a senior Brazilian government official said on Tuesday.
"I'm just aware of contact between, at the moment, one
country in Europe and one country in Asia where there is some exchanges about
buying bonds and that is something that has happened before," Gordhan said
to journalists.
"South Africa is not part of that market at the moment
and it's the big countries, who have $3.2 trillion in reserves. We are Mickey
Mouse compared to that and they can afford to look at some of those
issues."
Gordhan bemoaned what he called "a serious lack of global solidarity at the moment" in finding a solution to the debt crisis in some European countries, which has hit sentiment towards emerging markets.
The Brics nations would hold discussions on September 22 to discuss greater cohesion in the G20 on addressing global financial risks, he told Reuters separately.
