A person walks past the Sandton Convention Centre, which will host the upcoming BRICS Summit, in Johannesburg, South Africa August 19, 2023. REUTERS/James Oatway/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The BRICS group of nations has decided to invite six countries - Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - to become new members of the bloc, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday.
The debate over expanding the BRICS bloc, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has topped the agenda at a three-day summit in Johannesburg ending on Thursday.
While all BRICS members have publicly expressed support for growing the bloc, there were divisions among the leaders over how much and how quickly.
Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Carien du Plessis and Anait Miridzhanian Editing by Alexander Winning
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ace_redguard on August 24th, 2023 at 09:24 UTC »
Super interesting but motives and ability to cooperate are still not fully clear, especially in light of India China and Saudi Iran geopolitics, despite the thaw
endeend8 on August 24th, 2023 at 08:49 UTC »
Missing Nigeria and Indonesia - that’s another 500M people between those two. Then the 3Ms - Mexico Morocco and Malaysia for their economies but more importantly where those three are geopolitically, particularly the geo part.
mym0j0s0d0pe on August 24th, 2023 at 08:27 UTC »
So, of the 20ish countries that sent formal applications, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran, Ethiopia, and Egypt were accepted. It seems the China-led push for rapid expansion won out at the end. Brazil and Lula had only voiced support for Argentina at the beginning of the summit. Nonetheless, a very interesting development.
Xi also said that China will back Bangladesh's entry, although they aren't accepted at the time.