BRICS, the emerging economies bloc comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, discussed the expansion of the bloc in the ongoing summit held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The summit which began on Tuesday has over 70 dignitaries in attendance, including Vice President Kashim Shettima who’s representing President Bola Tinubu.
Talks about enlarging the bloc were the focus of the BRICS summit today after issues on trade and business between member states were discussed on Tuesday.
Recall that South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa had earlier expressed support for an expansion of the BRICS group of emerging market powers.
However, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, in his statement noted that while his country is in support of the expansion of the bloc, it must be consensus-based, as reported by Bloomberg via their Twitter live section.
According to Modi, members of the bloc first need to establish the criteria and guidelines for accepting new members into the bloc before additional merging economies are added to BRICS.
The emerging economies that are likely to join BRICS when the modalities of adding new members are finalized include Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.
India’s remarkable feat
As the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was giving his speech at the BRICS summit, he announced that the Chandrayaan -3 spacecraft had landed on the moon, becoming the only fourth country to achieve that feat.
However, India’s Chandrayaan -3 is the only spacecraft to have landed near the moon’s unexplored south pole.
More details to come later…
