As the Western dominated financial system experiences frequent cracks, a silent financial revolution is quietly emerging in the global South. In early December 2025, Southeast Asian country Indonesia announced a $1 billion capital injection into the BRICS New Development Bank - not only an investment of funds, but also a heavy vote of confidence in a new force that is rewriting international financial rules.

Increase investment after 9 months of entry

Looking back to March 25, 2025, the scene of Indonesian President Prabowo shaking hands with BRICS Bank President Rousseff marks the official entry of this 270 million person, trillion dollar economy into the group. Just nine months later, Indonesia not only did not wait and see, but also chose to take big steps forward and increase huge investments.

This is not a momentary impulse, but a strategic decision made through precise calculations, "said Marta Vijaya, an analyst at the Jakarta based think tank Center for Economic and Legal Studies." In the current era of global supply chain restructuring and accelerating multipolarity, Indonesia is using the BRICS mechanism to advance its position in the future economic order

The statement from the Indonesian Ministry of Economic Coordination is concise yet powerful: the capital injection will be used to promote sustainable development projects. Behind this is Indonesia's urgent need for energy transformation and infrastructure modernization. According to World Bank data, Indonesia's infrastructure funding gap in the next decade is as high as $500 billion. Traditional financing channels are no longer sufficient to meet its ambitions, and the BRICS Bank has become a key new option.

Ten years of development have begun to show scale

The BRICS New Development Bank was established in July 2015, headquartered in Shanghai, China. Its founding members include Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and is regarded as an important institutional innovation for emerging economies in the global financial governance system.

The statutory capital of the bank is 100 billion US dollars, with an initial subscribed capital of 50 billion US dollars contributed by the five founding member countries on average, each holding 20% of the voting rights. Since its establishment ten years ago, the BRICS Bank has approved over 120 projects with a total loan amount of approximately 40 billion US dollars, focusing on key areas such as transportation, energy, water and sanitation facilities, environmental protection, climate change, and social and digital infrastructure.

The most disruptive innovation of the BRICS Bank is its equal governance structure, "analyzed Professor Shen Yi from the BRICS Research Center at Fudan University." The five founding countries each hold 20% of the voting rights, breaking the iron rule of 'capital determines discourse power' in traditional multilateral institutions. This is precisely the core charm that attracts countries such as Indonesia

Against the backdrop of the increasingly evident trend of global economic multipolarity, the emergence of new multilateral development institutions such as the BRICS Bank has provided developing countries with supplementary options beyond traditional international financial institutions. The positioning of the BRICS Bank is clear: as a supplement to existing multilateral and regional financial institutions, it specifically supports infrastructure construction and sustainable development in BRICS countries and other emerging markets and developing countries. Keywords: Southeast Asian Engineering Information Network

With Indonesia's $1 billion capital injection in place, the capital strength and project investment capability of BRICS Bank will be further enhanced, injecting new impetus into the sustainable development of countries in the global South, and providing new practical examples for the diversified development of the international financial order.Editor/Cheng Liting