The five Brics nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have announced the admission of six new countries from next year as the club of large and populous emerging economies seeks to reshape the global order.
Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are to become full members from 1 January 2024, the group announced at its summit in South Africa.
“This membership expansion is historic,” said the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whose country is the most powerful in the group of non-western states that represents a quarter of the world’s economy. “The expansion is also a new starting point for Brics cooperation. It will bring new vigour to the Brics cooperation mechanism and further strengthen the force for world peace and development.”
The Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, hailed what he called “a great moment” for his country. “Ethiopia stands ready to cooperate with all for an inclusive and prosperous global order,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Calls to enlarge Brics had dominated the agenda at its three-day summit in Johannesburg and exposed divisions among the bloc over the pace and criteria for admitting new members. But the group, which makes decisions by consensus, had agreed on “the guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the Brics expansion process”, said the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Nearly two dozen countries had formally applied to join the club from across the “global south”, a broad term referring to non-western nations.
About 50 other heads of state and government attended the summit, underscoring what Brics leaders say is the attractiveness of its message.
US officials have played down the likelihood of Brics emerging as a geopolitical rival, describing the bloc as a highly diverse collection of countries containing both friends and rivals.
The Brics are a disparate mix of big and small economies, democratic and authoritarian states, and the candidates seeking membership and those admitted to the club also reflect this variety. But despite differences, Brics leaders expressed a common belief that the international system was dominated by western states and institutions and was not serving the interests of developing nations.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said with the admission of six new members, the bloc would represent 46% of the world’s population and an even greater share of its economic output.