Johannesburg, Oct 17 (IANS): The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have made incredible progress over the past 10 years, Ron Acrulli, chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges, told a daily.

Johannesburg's Afrikaans language Sunday newspaper Rapport was reporting on last week's cooperation agreement between BRICS stock exchanges. The agreement was announced at a meeting of the World Federation of Exchanges in Sandton, northern Johannesburg.

Acrulli, head of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, described the partnership as a historic moment for BRICS, reported Xinhua.

He said the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) alliance with six stock exchanges in the BRICS countries strengthens South Africans position within the group.

He said more and more investors want access to BRICS markets.

"For an economy to develop it needs a healthy financial market and the BRICS financial markets have made great advances in the past couple of years."

However, he said the volatility in global markets was something that emerging markets could not escape, especially as the crisis affects the banking sector.

"Globally, banks do business across the globe and we in Hong Kong cannot consider ourselves immune from the crisis. The business they do here is also affected."

Acrulli said the reason why foreigners had recently sold off their emerging market shares was related largely to liquidity problems.

"If you know that you have debt that needs to be settled soon but you have insufficient cash, the only way to get the cash is to sell assets you previously bought."

Acrulli said Asia and Hong Kong in particular had been less affected than Western countries by the 2008 financial crisis. But Asia was keeping a keen eye on the situation in Europe.

"We are worried, firstly because the European authorities have taken so long to come up with a solution."

He said BRICS stock exchange agreement points to the increasing relevance of BRICS economies and financial markets in the decade ahead, underscoring the reason for the BRICS relationship.

The chief executives entering into the agreement said the similar experiences and challenges facing their exchanges make the partnership a logical decision.

Rapport said South Africa's JSE compares favourably with other BRICS exchanges in terms of market capitalization.