On 5 September 2013, Zhou Xiaochuan,Governor of the People's Bank of China,gave an exclusive interview to CCTV on the BRICS Contingency Reserve Arrangement (CRA) at the Press Center of the Chinese Delegation to the G20 St. Petersburg.

Zhou Xiaochuan said that the CRA is a cross-region multilateral monetary cooperation mechanism based on currency swaps among BRICS countries, which draws on the successful practices of other similar regional monetary cooperation mechanisms, such as the Chiang Mai Initiative. The CRA can, while guaranteeing fund security, provide financial support to members having liquidity or balance of payments difficulties. It can also forestall the difficulties before materializing by stabilizing market expectations via members' strong commitments to providing swaps and therefore, neutralizing the impact of external shocks on the financial stability of member countries. The establishment of CRA by BRICS will be a milestone. It enriches the concrete cooperation among BRICS countries, strengthens their mutual trust and common interests, enhances their collective capacity to cope with external shocks and represents a major step forward in the cooperation among BRICS countries. The CRA is also a substantial supplement to the global efforts of building a global financial safety net, and an important endeavor by emerging market economies, not necessarily in proximity, but in similar stages of development and facing common global challenges, to set up a financial safety net across regions. This is of particular relevance to the global economy for the time being, as the complexity and uncertainties keep rising.