Ending all speculations of expanding the BRICS group, six nations have been formally invited to join the group during the summit meeting in South Africa. The expansion of BRICS, a group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, was the top agenda at the three-day summit in Johannesburg.
The six nations invited to join BRICS as full members in the first phase of expansion are Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE. The membership will come into effect from the first of January 2024.
This was announced by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa at a joint press conference after the summit meeting. “As five BRICS countries, we have reached an agreement on the guiding principles, standards, criteria, and procedures on the BRICS expansion process which has been in discussion for quite a while,” Ramaphosa told a joint media briefing.
“We have consensus on the first phase of this expansion process and other phases will follow,” he added while issuing the Johannesburg Declaration of 15th BRICS Summit.
#BRICSza | H.E. President Ramaphosa . Johannesburg II Declaration adopted . The XV Summit has adopted guiding principles on the BRICS EXPANSION.Following countries invited to join .
— BRICSza (@BRICSza) August 24, 2023
Argentina
Egypt
Ethiopia
Iran
Saudi Arabia
UAE
To take effect from the 1st of January 2024 pic.twitter.com/OOa9uqCXqs
With this expansion, six of the world’s nine largest oil producers are now part of BRICS.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated President Cyril Ramaphosa for the successful summit and said that India has always fully supported the expansion of BRICS membership.
“India has always believed that the addition of new members will further strengthen BRICS as an organisation and it will give our shared efforts a new impetus. This will also strengthen the belief of many countries in the multipolar world order,” PM Modi said.
He said that there have many positive outcomes at the 15th summit meet of the BRICS. PM Modi said that he is happy that the teams arrived at a consensus on the guiding principles, standers, criteria and procedure of the expansion. And based on this, today we have agreed to invite Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and UAE to join the BRICS.
PM Modi hoped that with the inclusion of the new members, BRICS will be able to infuse new momentum and new energy into the bloc’s cooperation. He noted that India has had very deep and historic relations with the new BRICS members, adding that new dimensions will be also added to the bilateral cooperation.
Speaking at the BRICS Summit. https://t.co/n93U4Vbher
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 24, 2023
The Indian Prime Minister added that India will work in building consensus for inducting other nations that have expressed interest in joining the bloc.
PM Modi said that the expansion and modernisation of the BRICS shows that every global organisation must adapt as per changing times. This is an initiative that can be an example of reforms in other global institutions that were established in the 20th century,” he added, clearly referring to the growing demands to reform and expand the UN Security Council.
He also used the opportunity to thank all those who have congratulated India on the successful soft landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission on the moon yesterday.
