Formation of two key institutions, the BRICS Business Council and the BRICS Development Bank were expected to headline the fifth BRICS Summit that was to be held on Wednesday in the South African port city of Durban.

Delegates meeting on Tuesday ahead of the main summit hailed the two institutions as the first steps of consolidating the multilateral body that was formed in 2009 to help bring balance to the global economic order.

"BRICS Development Bank will make the global financial sector more democratic," said Brazil's Minister for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Fernando Pimentel.

BRICS Business Council will be unrevealed on Wednesday when the leaders of the BRICS countries China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Russia meet for the summit.

Each country will contribute five members to the council, officials said. The council is expected to drive private sector partnerships among the BRICS members.

The council is crucial for the trading bloc that is seeking to strengthen cooperation among the private sector and open markets to each other in order to ease movement of goods and people.

The BRICS Development Bank is coming in to finance the infrastructure, easing dependence the existing global financial organizations like the World Bank.

The development bank will finance projects among the members and across other African countries, officials said.

But the modalities of the bank will also be unrevealed on Wednesday during the Heads of States meeting.

"Our counties are making their own statement that we are proactively engaged in balancing the global economy," said Anand Sharma, India's Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles.

"We are creating new axis of global development. The global economic order created several decades ago is now undergoing change and we believe for the better to make it more representative," said the minister.

The envisaged two institutions will officially become some of the first institutions to be formed under the BRICS cooperation, a body that brings together five of the world's most advanced developing economies.

The institutions are expected to set path for making the BRICS economies more efficient and more integrated, officials said.

BRICS members are betting on their growing economies and the goodwill among the majority of developing economies to bring a new global economic order, from what has been dominated by the west, through institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The member countries are also seeking to tilt the global trade, by trading more amongst themselves and easing dependence on European and United States markets that have stringiest market entry requirements.

Their hopes are pegged on the fact that their economies are yet to reach the peak in growth terms. The middle class in those economies is still expanding, meaning that demand for goods and services will continue to grow.

They also require major investments in infrastructure, creating business opportunities for their respective corporations.

The BRICS have also plotted to use their influence to take leadership in the conclusion of the World Trade Organisation's global trade talks known as the Doha Round, which seeks to help the developing countries join the global market place by compelling developed countries to open up their markets to developing countries.

Growing African economies also present an opportunity for the BRICS, with growing middle class offering new pool of financially empowered consumers.

Intra-BRICS trade stands at more than $360 billion and is expected to reach $500 billion by 2015. BRICS expect acceleration of this growth in long term as the markets continue to open to each other, eliminating non-tariff barriers and the private sectors of the five countries deepening cooperation.

(Xinhua News Agency March 26, 2013)