The BRICS alliance, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, has extended invitation for membership to six prospective countries.
During the ongoing 15th BRICS Summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa disclosed this development, wherein Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have been selected as potential entrants into the bloc.
Notably, the selection process garnered attention due to the inclusion of Egypt and Ethiopia while snubbing Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. Despite Nigeria’s economic stature, population dynamics, and religious influence, the two smaller African nations were preferred.
The deliberations on expanding BRICS’ membership, a subject of keen interest during the three-day summit in Johannesburg, draws to a close today. While consensus exists among current BRICS members regarding the notion of expansion, divergent viewpoints have surfaced among the leaders regarding the extent and swiftness of this growth.
Speaking on Wednesday, South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, affirmed that BRICS leaders have reached agreements on the mechanisms for evaluating potential new entrants.
“We have agreed on the matter of expansion,” she told a radio station run by her ministry.
“We have a document that we’ve adopted which sets out guidelines and principles, processes for considering countries that wish to become members of BRICS…That’s very positive.”
However, a BRICS member country official told Reuters that the leaders had not yet signed a finalized admission framework.
Formed in 2009 as an informal coalition, the BRICS consortium, spearheaded by Russia, was conceived with the objective of furnishing its constituent nations a forum to mitigate the ascendancy of the United States and its Western associates within the framework of the global hierarchy.
