CAIRO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian foreign minister on Friday called for designing comprehensive and efficient debt-relief mechanisms to support developing countries' poverty reduction endeavor.

Sameh Shoukry made the remarks while he was virtually attending the Friends of BRICS meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

BRICS is an acronym of five major emerging-market economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose leadership hold a summit annually since 2009 to discuss economic cooperation and political coordination. This year's summit will be hosted by South Africa in August.

"The global development financing gap requires serious discussion on reforming multilateral development institutions and establishing new financing mechanisms," Shoukry said in his speech, warning the debts burden of medium- and low-income countries hinders their poverty reduction efforts.

Citing Shanghai-based New Development Bank founded by BRICS nations and Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as exemplars of diversified development finance, he said Egypt's membership in the two banks helps expand their presence in Africa.

"Egypt will continue to play an active role in promoting interests of developing countries and boosting South-South cooperation," the minister added. Enditem

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