BRICS DOUBLES OVERNIGHT

Mon 01 January 2024:

The upcoming BRICS summit in Russia this October is set to undergo a significant transformation as it expands its membership to include five new nations alongside the original founding five – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Saudi Arabia along with the UAE, Egypt, Iran and Ethiopia joined Brics on January 1, doubling its membership to 10, with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa the original members.

The expansion of the Brics bloc to include Saudi Arabia and the UAE is expected to offer new investment opportunities for the Arab world’s two largest economies

The Arab world’s second largest economy is signing trade deals to strengthen its ties with countries around. It is working towards signing 26 comprehensive economic partnership agreements as it seeks to attract more investment and diversify its economy. while boosting the group’s influence globally, analysts said.

The BRICS trajectory has been remarkable: It started in 2001 when Goldman Sachs bankers coined the acronym BRIC for an investment fund. In 2009, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China met for the first time. Finally, in 2011, South Africa became the first African country to join.

Meanwhile, the calls for the overhaul of the international monetary system and the development of an alternative currency to the US dollar are expected to grow as Brics expands, according to Rao.

“As the world navigates for an alternative to the US dollar, even if less relevant today, the emergence of Brics common currency can act as a major harbinger in diversifying risks away from the stronghold of the dollar,” he said.

Brics is poised to assume greater influence as a powerful voice to the Global South, he added.

Ayham Kamel, head of Mena at Eurasia Group, is also bullish about the bloc wielding more influence globally.

“The prospect of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran and Egypt joining Brics creates new mechanisms that forces a degree of political co-operation by all the countries,” he said.

“The Arab countries are looking for improving their global geopolitical influence and appear committed to avoiding detachment from the West.”

Overcoming differences, finding common ground

The newcomers will also bring with them considerable risk of conflict. Egypt and Ethiopia are fighting over water from the Nile, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have been battling for supremacy in the Persian Gulf for decades.

BRICS can only make decisions unanimously, so neither China nor Russia, and soon Iran, will be able to easily implement their own agendas. Yet, as different as the BRICS nations and their interests are, Johannes Plagemann, a political scientist at the Hamburg think tank GIGA, said there is a basic consensus.

“They want an international world order that is less dominated by the West” — a stance that is not to be equated with hostility toward the West, he said. In September, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, made a distinction for his country that is likely to apply to the majority of BRICS states: “India is not Western, it is not anti-Western.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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