Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Centre, gave a commentary to the Rossiya24 TV channel for a report on the prospects and potential of BRICS.
The association was established in 2006. Initially, it included four members: Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2011, South Africa joined the alliance, and from January 1, 2024 — Egypt, Iran, UAE, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia.
About 30 more countries want to join BRICS in one status or another. Thus, Malaysia considers participation in the association economically beneficial and plans to start the official process of joining after receiving a final response from the South African government.
"Very different countries with very different economic and political patterns, with different social and cultural contexts can join BRICS. In this diversity lies the strength of this association,"
Ivanov emphasized.
Argentina expects to join BRICS as early as this year. Thailand, Turkey, Pakistan and Zimbabwe are also among those wishing to become members of the association. According to Zimbabwe's Defense Minister Oppah Chamu Zvipange Muchinguri-Kashiri, BRICS offers "alternative favorable conditions for free trade with other countries".
BRICS accounts for more than one-third of the world's GDP in purchasing power parity terms and overtakes the Group of Seven (G7), an association of seven leading economically developed countries that includes the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Canada.
Cooperation within the BRICS framework also makes it possible to expand the use of national currencies. In Russia's trade settlements with BRICS countries, their share is already about 85%, but the task is more complex.
"The goal is not so much to use national currencies in settlements, but to create such economic integration relations that would make trade turnover in national currencies inevitable,”
noted the Director of the BRICS Centre.
Another promising direction is the creation of a BRICS grain exchange. BRICS members account for about half of the world's wheat and rice harvest, which means that there is a possibility to regulate the market. According to experts, the BRICS platform can compete with the The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and French Marché à Terme International de France (MATIF).
This year Russia holds the BRICS presidency and will host the XVI BRICS summit in Kazan at the end of October.
