Nations lining up to join BRICS bloc, says South Africa

Twenty-two countries from across the globe have applied to join the BRICS bloc and more have shown interest, South Africa said Thursday, ahead of the five-nation group’s summit next month.

BRICS — an acronym for heavyweights Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and a counterweight to Western economic domination — has indicated it is open to expansion.

“Twenty-two countries have formally approached BRICS countries to become full member of BRICS, there’s an equal number of countries that have been informally asking about becoming BRICS members,” South Africa’s ambassador-at-large for Asia and the BRICS, Anil Sooklal, told media in Johannesburg.

Growing interest in the bloc is “nothing new” but points to the “confidence” in the work that BRICS has been “championing” over the past decade-and-half of its existence, he said.

BRICS is not only “a power force … in trying to change the fault lines in terms of global politics, but it is also changing what is happening in the economic space globally,” he said.

“The current global architecture continues to be unequal, continues to marginalise developing countries .. and continues to be dominated by a few hegemons, we don’t want such a world. We want a world where our voices are heard,” he told AFP.

South Africa will host the summit in Johannesburg from August 22-24.

Formally launched in 2009, BRICS now accounts for 23 percent of global GDP and 42 percent of the world’s population, according to the summit website.