20 or so nations want to join BRICS: President Ramaphosa

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President Cyril Ramaphosa says BRICS leaders will discuss the expansion of the group during the summit in Johannesburg next month. More countries have shown an interest in joining the economic bloc.

The group was established to promote trade and development among countries, not to rival the then G8.

South Africa joined the group in 2009. President Cyril Ramaphosa says a decision will be made next month whether to expand the bloc.

“As we speak now close to 20 or so of others want to join BRICS and they want us to admit them into the BRICS family. So, at this summit we are also going to be discussing the prospect of whether BRICS grows beyond the five countries or not and many countries some 20 or so are lining up.”

Business Council

Meanwhile, member of BRICS Business Council, Stavros Nicolaou says the BRICS bloc plays an important part in the global economy.

South Africa will host BRICS summit next month and the raging war in Ukraine will form part of some of the discussions. This war has negatively impacted the world’s economy including the African continent.

“This formation represents 31,5 percent of the global GDP so it is slightly larger than even in the G7 so that is a size of the market that we could potentially participate in. The second thing to do, we unlock those opportunities so that we reduce the risk of debt trap and many distressed economies around the world. I think the key here is we need to return to multilateralism.”