SSC CGL 2025 Tier-II · Paper-I, 19 January 2026 · General Awareness · Question 3 of 150

We transcribed this text from the pictures of a candidate's response sheet for this paper; the answer is the key SSC marked with a green tick on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. This paper reaches us as a candidate's response sheet saved as pictures, so we transcribed the text from those pictures, and a second reader checked every question against them; where the layout carries meaning, we show the picture too. Each answer is the key SSC marked with a green tick on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. UnlockIAS wrote the solutions.

The 'Fortaleza Declaration' of 2014 is most famous in BRICS history for the creation of which of the following?

(a)The BRICS Space Agency
(b)A common BRICS currency called 'R5'
(c)The Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)
(d)A permanent BRICS Secretariat in Brazil

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The 6th BRICS summit met at Fortaleza, Brazil, in July 2014. On 15 July the members signed two founding texts: the agreement on the New Development Bank and the treaty establishing the Contingent Reserve Arrangement.

The CRA is a US$100 billion reserve pool that members draw on through currency swaps under short-term balance-of-payments pressure. The bank is not offered here, so the pool → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
The BRICS Space Agency — No space agency came out of Fortaleza. The summit's institutional outcomes were financial: a development bank and a reserve pool.
(b)
A common BRICS currency called 'R5' — BRICS has no common currency. 'R5', from the real, rouble, rupee, renminbi and rand, is an informal label for a proposal that was never adopted.
(d)
A permanent BRICS Secretariat in Brazil — BRICS has no permanent secretariat. Its chair rotates among members every year. Brazil appears in the option only because the host city, Fortaleza, is in Brazil.

Concept

Fortaleza gave BRICS two institutions of its own.

The New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, finances infrastructure and sustainable-development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies.

The Contingent Reserve Arrangement is a safety net: members commit reserves, and a member under short-term balance-of-payments pressure can draw on them.

This question leaves the bank out of the options, so it tests whether you know the second institution signed the same day.

Key facts

The 6th BRICS summit met at Fortaleza, Brazil, and its Fortaleza Declaration is dated 15 July 2014.
The treaty establishing the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, a US$100 billion pool, was signed at Fortaleza on 15 July 2014.
The agreement on the New Development Bank was signed at Fortaleza the same day, and the bank is headquartered in Shanghai.
K.V. Kamath of India was the first president of the New Development Bank.

Study next

New Development Bank: headquarters, regional offices and presidentsBRICS summits and their host citiesIMF and World Bank: the Bretton Woods institutions

Common traps

Looking for the New Development Bank among the options and guessing when it is missing. The CRA was signed alongside it.
Reading 'in Brazil' in option (d) as a clue because Fortaleza is Brazilian. BRICS has no permanent secretariat.

14 Sep 2025, 12:30, GA Q.6 asks where the New Development Bank's Americas Regional Office was to be set up (São Paulo), and 12 Sep 2025, 16:00, GA Q.7 asks which city hosted the BRICS foreign ministers' meeting of 4 June 2018 (Pretoria).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Economic Scene — all 96 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.