Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates has been invited to join the BRICS group of nations.
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The South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the candidacies of the aforementioned countries were approved on Thursday by leaders of the current member states.
“We value the interest of other countries in building a partnership with BRICS. We’ve tasked our foreign ministers to further develop the BRICS Partners Country model and a list of prospective partner countries,” the South African leader added.
The new countries will become full-fledged members for the club from January 2024.
BRICS is an acronym that started as BRIC in 2001, coined by Jim O’Neill (a Goldman Sachs economist) for Brazil, China, India, and Russia.
The first expansion saw South Africa joining the club in 2010 without prerequisites, adding “S” to the acronym.
At the time, Goldman Sachs claimed that the global economy will be dominated by the four BRIC economies by 2050.
At the three-day annual summit in Johannesburg this week, the group which makes decisions by consensus, the group agreed on “the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the BRICS expansion process”, during the three-day annual summit held in Johannesburg this week, Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
The Chinese President Xi Jinping called the membership expansion “historic.” He added that the expansion is also a new starting point for BRICS cooperation, and that it will bring new vigour to the BRICS cooperation mechanism and further strengthen the force for world peace and development.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hailed what he called “a great moment” for his country.
In a statement released on his Twitter handle, Abiy stated that “Ethiopia stands ready to cooperate with all for an inclusive and prosperous global order.”
A senior adviser to Iran’s president on Thursday welcomed the country’s admission to the grouping.
“Permanent membership in the group of global emerging economies is considered a historic development and a strategic success for the foreign policy of the Islamic republic,” Mohammad Jamshidi wrote on X, which was previously known as Twitter.
At the summit on Thursday, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said, “We look forward to develop this cooperation to create new developmental and economic opportunities and elevate our relationship to the aspired level.”
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
