The BRICS group of emerging countries has agreed to extend invitations to six new members, including Iran.
The other invitations have gone out to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates, reported Bloomberg.
“We have consensus on the first phase of this expansion process and other phases will follow,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa, as his nation hosted a summit of the BRICS nations, per Bloomberg.
The expansion would bring Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, on board with Russia, Iran, the UAE, and Brazil, who are also among the largest energy exporters, reported Bloomberg. As a result, an often discussed goal of the block — to trade energy in an alternative currency to the dollar — may be one step closer to becoming reality, per Bloomberg.
At its inception, the BRICS organization started as a group of nations whose commonality was large, growing economies. This expansion includes nations in crisis, such as Iran, which is under severe sanctions by most of the Western countries and economic institutions.
Chief emerging market economist for Bloomberg Economics Ziad Daoud views bringing on a nation like Iran as a signal that BRICS is looking to present a global political alternative.
“The original BRIC members had two things in common: large economies, and high potential growth rates. The expanded BRICS-11 is a less coherent group — some are going through crises, others are thriving. This could signal an expansion of the agenda beyond economics,” said Daoud, per Bloomberg.
As reported previously by The Dallas Express, the move to bring more nations into BRICS has been spearheaded by China. Russia and South Africa backed expansion, while India had misgivings about increasing Chinese power, and Brazil had wanted to avoid creating more of a rift with the West.
On the heels of the summit, Russia made concerns about an increasing political divide between BRICS and the West more explicit. Speaking after the summit on Friday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said any nations that are hostile to any BRICS members are not welcome in the organization.
Speaking about the requirements for joining BRICS, Ryabkov called “non-application of illegal sanctions against any of the members of the association” a prerequisite, noting that all six new invitee nations comply with the requirement, per RT.
Ryabkov claimed that the U.S. was increasing pressure on other nations that might express interest in joining the BRICS block, but he said the efforts would be wasted.
“The process of diluting the role of the collective West in world affairs is irreversible,” Ryabkov noted, per RT.