Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said that the global economy has incurred a loss of around $1 trillion due to terrorism, calling it the “biggest threat to development, peace and prosperity”.

The Prime Minister made the statements while addressing the 11th BRICS Summit in Brazil’s capital Brasilia.

PM Modi stressed that terrorism and organised crimes hurt trade and business and hoped efforts of BRICS member countries will give an impetus to cooperation on security against such issues.

“The atmosphere of doubt created by terrorism, terror financing, drug trafficking and organised crime harms trade and businesses. I am happy that the first seminar on BRICS Strategies for Countering Terrorism was organised. We hope that such efforts and activities of five sub-working groups will increase strong BRICS security cooperation against terrorism and other organised crimes,” Modi said during the plenary session of the BRICS summit, news agency ANI reported.

PM Modi added that over 2.25 lakh people have died due to terrorist acts in the last decade. “According to estimates, there has been a loss of $1 trillion economy. This has also reduced the economic growth of developing countries by 1.5 per cent,” he said.

Modi said that growing people-to-people relationship will boost partnership between BRICS nations.

“BRICS countries should organise youth summits. In this, the youth of five countries should take part in activities like start-ups, hackathon, sports and creativity in large numbers. Students of BRICS countries in India will be given internships and fellowships every year to study subjects related to BRICS. We should also consider promoting the traditional sports of our countries,” he added.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the BRICS member countries.