According to Grigory Karasin, Chairman of the International Committee of the Federation Council of Russia, more than 40 countries have expressed interest in joining the BRICS international economic cooperation.
– More than 40 countries have said they want to join the group. And the number of such countries continues to increase every month. This proves that such a free and flexible format of cooperation within BRICS is very attractive, he said after a meeting of BRICS parliamentary commissions on international affairs in Moscow, reports Russia’s Tass.
According to Karasin, many BRICS members share Russia’s view that the association should not be in a hurry to adopt a strict charter “seeing how counterproductively and even provocatively the European Union is acting” today.
– So far, this is quite justified. As long as BRICS’ future looks very promising for all of its members, the number of candidates for joining it will keep on growing, he continued.
De-dollarization pressing issue
Commenting on the prospects for the development of the BRICS financial transaction system, he noted that this is an important issue that is being discussed by the organization’s members and will be discussed more in the future.
– Many countries directly asked questions about the de-dollarization of the economy because too much attention is being focused on the dollar while major powers have their own currencies. The issue is quite pressing.
Russia took over the presidency of the organization on January 1, 2024. The BRIC group was formed in 2006 and consists of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2011, South Africa joined the group and an S was added to the acronym.
Today, the organization has ten members after Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia also joined. Argentina was offered membership last summer but declined, opting instead for closer cooperation with the United States and NATO. The stated purpose of BRICS cooperation is, simply put, to create a counterweight to the global dominance of Western countries.
