BRICS joint action at G20 summit may be wishful thinking

(Reuters) - Plans by the world's leading emerging economies to join forces to battle the latest bout of global financial turbulence could remain on the drawing board once again at the G20 meeting in Moscow this week.

An exodus of capital from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa prompted by an expected scale-back in U.S. monetary stimulus has raised fears about the health of their economies, which are already losing some of their luster.

The reversal of the "monetary tsunami" - as Brazil called the flood of cheap money from developed nations - prompted the South American nation's president, Dilma Rousseff, to phone her Chinese counterpart in June to discuss "coordinated action" to offset the sharp appreciation of the U.S. dollar.

 Indeed, there are reasons for the BRICS to worry. Massive capital outflows have weakened most of their currencies, raising inflationary pressures and forcing Brazil and India to tighten liquidity at a time when their economies are underperforming.

This week's meeting of the 20 leading world economies was supposed to be the stage for the BRICS to discuss and propose joint measures to limit the fallout of a stronger greenback.

However, unlike their wealthier counterparts at the G7 group, the BRICS are still far from either coordinating monetary policy or jointly intervening in forex markets.

The BRICS surprised many by starting work on a $100 billion reserve fund and a joint development bank to reshape the global financial architecture long dominated by rich nations. These new institutions will still take some time to materialize.

Another BRICS official currently at the G20 meeting in Moscow put it more bluntly; "There are no discussions inside the BRICS about measures to battle a stronger dollar ... We just want to secure what we had agreed on previously."

Beyond promises to speed up the creation of the BRICS bank and a reserves fund, the five nations will again have little to show during the G20 meeting.

At their last summit in South Africa earlier this year, the BRICS, which make up a fifth of the global economy, disappointed many with what appeared to be lack of conviction to create the new institutions.