BRICS summit kicked off in South Africa

Photo credit: Maxim Mishin / Press Service of the Mayor and Government of Moscow / mos.ru (CC BY 4.0)

The summit of the BRICS group, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, started on Tuesday, August, 22, TASS reports. It is being held in Johannesburg and chaired by South Africa. Interaction between the BRICS and the countries of the African continent has been chosen as the key topic of the forum. Its guests will be leaders from more than 60 countries in Africa and other regions. The summit has already become the 5th in a row, it will last three days.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will join the forum participants online. South Africa confirmed that Vladimir Putin will join all the events together with the leaders of the five countries.

The Russian delegation in Johannesburg is headed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 

After South Africa, the BRICS chairmanship will pass to Russia, and the summit is planned to be held in Kazan.

It is expected that the leaders of the BRICS countries will discuss issues related to three important areas. These are the strengthening and expansion of cooperation in the economy and finance; further coordination of actions in politics and the security sphere; attention to the humanitarian field and encouragement of various forms of interaction between the peoples of the association at the social and cultural levels. 

The leaders of the BRICS countries will also discuss the issue of expanding the association. More than 50 applications to join have been submitted recently. The fundamental decision to expand the BRICS has already been made. Now the member-states need to discuss its principles, standards and rules.

In recent months, the consultations have been held in the BRICS on a project for the possible launch of a single currency for the group, but so far there has been no corresponding decision.

Russkiy Mir