{"id":35554,"date":"2023-06-02T11:18:59","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T05:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35554"},"modified":"2025-04-21T08:48:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T03:18:22","slug":"brics-whats-on-the-agenda-of-the-brics-fm-meeting-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/brics-whats-on-the-agenda-of-the-brics-fm-meeting-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"BRICS: What\u2019s on the agenda of the BRICS FM meeting in South Africa?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About BRICS<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Significance of BRICS<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Economic Cooperation among BRICS<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What\u2019s on the Agenda of 15th BRICS Summit?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Looking for Multipolarity &#8211; Expanding the Membership of BRICS<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Common Currency<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>China and India in BRICS<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The External Affairs Minister of India S Jaishankar is in Cape Town (South Africa) to attend a meeting of the foreign ministers (FM) of BRICS &#8211; a grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.<\/li>\n<li>The FMs\u2019 meeting will finalise the agenda for the <strong>15th BRICS<\/strong> (South Africa) scheduled with the theme: \u201cBRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>About BRICS:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Origin:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>BRIC <\/strong>[Brazil, Russia, India and China]<strong> idea was first conceived in 2001<\/strong> by Goldman Sachs as part of an economic modelling exercise to forecast global economic trends over the next half century.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 2006<\/strong>, the group was formalised as BRIC during the 1st BRIC FMs\u2019 meeting on the sidelines of the General Debate of the UN Assembly in New York City.<\/li>\n<li>After a series of high-level meetings, the <strong>1st BRIC summit<\/strong> was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia in <strong>2009<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Expansion of BRIC to BRICS:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>BRIC FMs at their meeting in New York<strong> in 2010 agreed that South Africa <\/strong>may be invited to join BRIC.<\/li>\n<li>Accordingly, South Africa was invited<strong> to attend the 3rd BRICS Summit in Sanya (China) in 2011.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>BRIC(S) Summits: Since 2009<\/strong>, the head of governments of the BRICS states have met annually at formal summits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Significance of BRICS:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>BRICS is an important grouping bringing together the major emerging economies from the world, comprising\n<ul>\n<li>41% of the world population,<\/li>\n<li>24% of the world GDP and<\/li>\n<li>Over 16% share in world trade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>BRICS countries have been the <strong>main engines of global economic growth<\/strong> and have come together to deliberate on three pillars of\n<ul>\n<li>Political and security,<\/li>\n<li>Economic and financial and<\/li>\n<li>Cultural and people to people exchanges.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Economic Cooperation among BRICS:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>New Development Bank (NDB):<\/strong> During the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza (Brazil) in 2014, the leaders signed the agreement establishing the NDB.\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>multilateral development bank<\/strong> (headquartered in Shanghai, China) operated by the five BRICS states.<\/li>\n<li>NDB has committed $32.8 billion in 96 socio-economic development projects so far.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA):<\/strong> In 2014, the BRICS governments had signed a treaty, which aimed at forestalling short-term balance of payments pressures and strengthening financial stability of the BRICS nations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s on the Agenda of 15th BRICS Summit?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Two items on the agenda<\/strong> are attracting attention for their potential for a <strong>greater geopolitical consolidation of the grouping<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>A plan to expand the membership of BRICS, and<\/li>\n<li>A common currency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Looking for Multipolarity &#8211; Expanding the Membership of BRICS:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>As many as<strong> 19 countries<\/strong> (such as Argentina, Mexico from Latin America; Nigeria, Algeria, from Africa; Saudi Arabia, UAE, from West Asia; Kazakhstan from Central Asia; Bangladesh and Afghanistan from South Asia; etc) are in the queue to join BRICS.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The rush towards BRICS is driven by two basic impulses:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>There is considerable <strong>anti-US sentiment<\/strong> in the world, and all these countries are looking for a grouping where they can use that sentiment to gather together.<\/li>\n<li>There is a lot of <strong>appetite for multipolarity<\/strong>, for a platform where countries of the <strong>Global South <\/strong>can express their solidarity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Common Currency:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The idea of a common currency was <strong>proposed by Russia\u2019<\/strong>s President at the Beijing BRICS summit last year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>An insulation from the dollar is a tempting proposal<\/strong>, but not all members believe that it is an idea whose time has come.<\/li>\n<li>An option is for members to trade with each other in their respective currencies. The India-Russia example has shown, this is not easy either.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>China and India in BRICS:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The war in Ukraine<\/strong> has brought the West together on the one hand and strengthened the China-Russia partnership on the other.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>China is driving the expansion of the BRICS<\/strong> to challenge US hegemony with multilateralism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>While India\u2019s presence at the G7 summit<\/strong> in Hiroshima and an informal Quad summit was seen as a sign of New Delhi\u2019s US tilt, it attaches significant importance to the <strong>BRICS <\/strong>and <strong>Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India called on BRICS nations to demonstrate their sincerity in <strong>reforming multilateral institutions,<\/strong> including that of the UN Security Council.<\/li>\n<li>However, one view on the expanding membership is that <strong>it could sideline India\u2019s role in the group.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organisation. It is the world&#8217;s largest regional organisation in terms of geographic scope and population.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is Quad?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue\/Quad is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States that is maintained by talks between member countries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-global\/explained-global-brics-that-could-be-bigger-8641524\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>BRICS FM meeting in South Africa: What\u2019s on the agenda?<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/foreign-minister-jaishankar-calls-on-brics-nations-to-demonstrate-sincerity-in-reforming-unsc\/article66921382.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>TH<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BRICS is an important grouping bringing together the major emerging economies from the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35555,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35554","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}