South Africa’s Durban is set to host the 15th BRICS Summit in August this year. The BRIC group came together when the foreign ministers of Brazil, Russia, India and China met for the first time in 2006 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
They kicked off the BRIC cooperation in which South Africa participated in 2011 when it attended the third BRICS Summit held in China’s Sanya.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov made the announcement while addressing a new conference with his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh in Massawa, Eritrea. Lavrov is currently touring southern Africa and earlier this month met Naledi Pandor, South African foreign minister, in order to strengthen ties between the two nations.
Lavrov said BRICS countries exhibit global multi-polarity and aims to strengthen regional identity in the developing regions of the world.
“This organisation unites five countries, with more than 12 others showing an interest in joining it. Developing links between BRICS and other countries will be a central topic at the upcoming summit of the five which is to take place in August in Durban, South Africa. The clock of multipolar history is ticking in the right direction,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
There have been 14 formal and 9 informal meetings of BRICS leaders since 2009. Durban earlier hosted the fifth annual summit in 2013 which was attended by the heads of states of these five member states.
The first BRIC meeting was held in Russia in June 2009 where leaders decided to upgrade the cooperation between the members to summit level.
A separate report by Türkiye-based news agency Anadolu Agency said that the leaders will discuss creating a common currency. This comment came when Lavrov was addressing a joint press conference with Angolan President Joao Lourenco in capital Luanda.
Without naming the US, he took a jibe at them and said that the “incompetence of the ‘masters’ of the current international monetary and financial system” have been observed by “serious, self-respecting countries” who now want their own mechanism to ensure development as well as it being protected from outside dictates.
“It is in this direction that the initiatives that have been voiced recently … about the need to think about creating our own currencies within the framework of BRICS,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency.
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