BRICS South Africa Sherpa Anil Sooklal announced in an exclusive interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the invitation to attend an in-person BRICS summit in South Africa in August later this year. The BRICS is a bloc consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, with a combined GDP that is slightly higher than the United States.
Together, the five major economies make up 41% of the world’s population, 24% of the world’s GDP, and 16% of global trade flows.
Sooklal explained that Russia is ‘preparing to attend the summit, and South Africa is preparing to host an in-person summit in August this year.’ His comments are significant given that the International Criminal Court issued a warrant against President Putin, causing concern over his participation.
South Africa is also a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, which creates a geopolitical dilemma for the BRICS summit host of the year.
Sooklal also spoke about the expansion of the grouping, revealing that 20 countries have formally or informally approached BRICS leaders to become full members of BRICS. Regarding India, Sooklal said, ‘India has been a founding member of the BRICS and has played a critical role over the past 15 years.’
The BRICS nations are banding together to counter the dominance of the US dollar as a nearly hegemonic currency in global trade. Sooklal called for ‘focusing on reforming the global multilateral architecture at geopolitical, geo-economic, and geo-financial’ levels. He stated that the BRICS interbank agreement mechanism that they signed several years ago laid the foundation to trade in local currency.
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