BRICS: Alliance grows – Five new members from January 1st – 2024-07-29 22:43:03

The BRICS economic alliance is getting bigger with the entry of five new member states from January 1.

Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are now members of this group of countries, which may now be renamed, with the predominant one being “BRICS+”.

This coalition of member states was created in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China adopting the name BRIC, while after South Africa joined the bloc in 2010 it was renamed BRICS.

The now expanded group of states gathers 45% of the world’s population (about 3.5 billion people) and a GDP greater than 28.5 trillion. dollars (28% of global GDP), while it represents 44% of global oil production.

The backsliding of Argentina, which while it had declared that it would enter the economic bloc, but after the last elections and the triumph of the neoliberal Javier Millay canceled its participation, does not seem able to stop the dynamics of the BRICS. Ambitions to strengthen the coalition are significant, as about 20 more countries in the developing world have submitted a formal request to join the organization.

The declared goal of the BRICS is for emerging economies to gain stronger representation and a stronger voice and not depend for their financing solely on organizations such as the IMF or the World Bank, which are completely controlled by the West.

In this context, after all, the states of the coalition established the New Development Bank in 2014 to grant loans to emerging economies. By the end of 2022, this new bank had lent nearly $32 billion to developing countries to build roads, rail networks and clean water infrastructure.

As Trinity College Dublin professor Padreg Carmody told the BBC, China’s aim through the BRICS initiative is to strengthen its influence in regions such as Africa and become the dominant voice of the Global South, while Russia moves in another direction. wave, hoping that with the support of emerging markets it will be able to cope with the sanctions it has suffered from the West because of the invasion of Ukraine.

According to newsit, within the new alliance a great discussion has also opened about the creation of a new currency that will come to replace the dollar in transactions between them. The proposal, which has already been made by Brazil and Russia, may not have been discussed at all in the coalition’s forums during the whole of 2023, but this does not rule out that at some point in the near future a new currency or cryptocurrency will be used in international transactions, he commented. Padraig Carmody on the UK network.

With Russia taking over the presidency in 2024, President Vladimir Putin has said he has set goals to strengthen the role of the BRICS countries in the international economic system, expand the cooperation of the alliance’s financial institutions and boost trade in their national currencies, as well as promote cooperation between the tax and customs authorities of the coalition states.

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