By Ali Karbalaei
TEHRAN - The new emerging global markets are to kick off their annual summit, and many countries are keen to join.
The BRICS includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It will hold its first ministerial meeting on Friday and Saturday in preparation for heads of state summit in August. This year's gathering will be held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Around 20 non-BRICS foreign ministers will be in attendance at the end of the week, with many countries actively expressing an interest in becoming members.
During last year's BRICS summit in China, a strong message was delivered of putting development on top of everything else on the international agenda. As Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out at the UN General Assembly, the goal of the initiative is that no country or individual should be left behind in pursuing development.
As the rotating chair switches to South Africa, among the themes of this year's summit is "multilateralism" in promoting international development.
It's no surprise that the success of the BRICS mechanism has attracted many like-minded nations who are expressing a desire to join, from the UAE in Asia to Algeria in Africa and Argentina in Latin America.
Among other issues on the agenda at the BRICS summit in August is increased economic autonomy. Another is plans to decide on admitting new members and what criteria they would have to meet.
Talks on the enlargement of the bloc are mainly based on the interest of other countries over the self-made economic prosperity of its members, as other nations who seek BRICS membership are growing tired of dealing with the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.
According to Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran are in talks to join the economic bloc.
“What will be discussed is the expansion of BRICS and the modalities of how this will happen,” Bloomberg has cited his as saying. “Thirteen countries have formally asked to join and another six have asked informally. We are getting applications to join every day.”
Since its formation as the four-member BRIC in 2006, the bloc has only added one new member, South Africa, in 2010, which made it BRICS.
In March, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said international interest in the BRICS group was "huge." "Saudi Arabia is one," she said. "United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Algeria, and Argentina, as well as Mexico and Nigeria."
Iran is said to have already applied to join BRICS and its foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has confirmed he will be participating in the Cape Town meeting at the official invitation of South Africa.
The latest submissions for membership give substance to the argument of the rapidly changing global developments following the Ukraine, Yemen and Afghanistan wars.
Among the attractive aspects of BRICS is that nations view the alliance of emerging markets as an alternative, and not necessarily a challenge, to a U.S.-led world order which is weakening, as experts point out, because of America's unilateral foreign policy blunders.
Experts also argue that Europe lacks any sovereign world vision, as witnessed by the Ukraine war, where it has taken its marching orders from Washington and failed to bring peace to Ukraine, as European households suffer from record inflation as a direct result of the conflict on its doorstep.
The Ukraine war has had a direct impact at international scale when it comes to food and energy.
In the absence of any willpower to stamp its authority on regional affairs, let alone global affairs, Europe has, in essence, failed the international community as a reliable economic partner, forcing many to seek alternatives to the West.
Iran for instance has the second largest gas reserves in the world, something that Europe is desperately searching for, but has not approached Tehran about, because of its bizarre compliance to illegal U.S. unilateral sanctions. It now looks that the much-needed Iranian commodity will most likely be heading elsewhere.
While BRICS has its own bank (New Development Bank), it is not as large as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but this could be down to just a matter of time as more countries seek to join the economic bloc.
The World Bank and the IMF were founded back in the 1940's and have failed in their declared goals of creating a more stable and prosperous global economy.
The austerity that comes with loans have brought increasingly high levels of poverty and inequality to countries who borrowed money from them. Just ask the people of Greece or Argentina. Critics accuse the U.S. of having unfair influence on the World Back and the IMF.
On the other hand, the New Development Bank or the BRICS Bank, which was just established in 2015 and with its stated aim to "to help build a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future for the planet" is appealing. It may sound like a good advertising slogan, but the facts on the ground show BRICS is attracting a record number of clients seeking to expand the bloc.
According to reports, BRICS is in talks with Saudi Arabia to become a member of its New Development Bank. While Saudi Arabia has yet to confirm this, such reports were unheard of just a year ago.
The idea itself makes sense as most oil purchasing clients are now based in the East and Latin America. But it will be a major setback for the United States, which will see an agonizing decline of petrodollars.
In the early 1970s, Washington and Riyadh reached an agreement that Saudi oil sales to all international clients be sold in dollars in exchange for American military protection, something that the U.S. failed to adhere to in the Saudi conflict with Yemen.
Today, Saudi Arabia is in talks with Beijing to sell its oil to China in the Yuan and has restored diplomatic ties with Iran in another blow to the U.S. and its extremely mischievous proxy in the region Israel.
Should the Kingdom become a New Development Bank member, it would be a boost to the bank as well as for Saudi Arabia itself, as BRICS members, among other things, provide a safety net in times of difficulty.
For instance, BRICS members have not bowed to NATO pressure to join the sanctions regime against Russia.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has argued that BRICS nations should establish their own common currency, highlighting the advantages of such a unified economic measure that would be independent of the U.S. dollar.
Under a U.S. dollar dominated world order, prosperity has been taken over by poverty while peace has been replaced by violence.
And BRICS is not all about the economy.
In April, BRICS' deputy ministers and special envoys held a meeting in Cape Town to discuss, among other issues, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as developments in the Persian Gulf states, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Western Sahara and Yemen.
Such platforms provide an opportunity to bring emerging markets together to discuss both the financial and political aspects of the world.
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