This August, Bangladesh will be becoming a member of BRICS. Political analysts are seeing this decision as “timely” as the organization is gradually becoming important in creating an alternative world order – which would liberate the developing nations from the evil grips of the Western countries – particularly the United States.
BRICS is an acronym for five regional economies such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as “BRIC” (or “the BRICs”) in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, who coined the term to describe fast-growing economies that would collectively dominate the global economy by 2050; South Africa was added in 2010.
The BRICS have a combined area of 39,746,220 km2 (15,346,100 sq mi) and an estimated total population of about 3.21 billion, or about 26.7 percent of the world’s land surface and 41.5 percent of the global population. Brazil, Russia, India, and China are among the world’s ten largest countries by population, area, and GDP (PPP), and the latter three are widely considered to be current or emerging superpowers. All five states are members of the G20, with a combined nominal GDP of US$28.06 trillion (about 26.6 percent of the gross world product), a total GDP (PPP) of around US$56.65 trillion (32.5 percent of global GDP PPP), and an estimated US$4.46 trillion in combined foreign reserves (as of 2018).
The BRICS were originally identified for the purpose of highlighting investment opportunities and had not been a formal intergovernmental organization. Since 2009, they have increasingly formed into a more cohesive geopolitical bloc, with their governments meeting annually at formal summits and coordinating multilateral policies; China hosted the most recent 14th BRICS summit on July 24, 2022. Bilateral relations among the BRICS are conducted mainly on the basis of non-interference, equality, and mutual benefit.
The BRICS are considered the foremost geopolitical rival to the G7 bloc of leading advanced economies, announcing competing initiatives such as the New Development Bank, the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the BRICS payment system, the BRICS Joint Statistical Publication and the BRICS basket reserve currency. Since 2022, the group has sought to expand membership, with several developing countries expressing interest in joining.
According to Russian state news agency TASS, Egypt has formally applied to join the five-member BRICS bloc of emerging economies, the Russian ambassador to Cairo, Georgy Borisenko.
“Egypt has applied to join the BRICS group, because one of the initiatives that BRICS is currently engaged in is the maximum transfer of trade to alternative currencies, whether national or the creation of some kind of joint currency. Egypt is very interested in this”, Borisenko was quoted as saying.
The foreign ministers of BRICS member states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) held a meeting in Cape Town on June 2. The meeting was also attended by top diplomats from the 12 countries of the Global South that wish to join the group, namely Argentina, Bangladesh, the Comoros, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
BRICS common currency
Efforts by countries to replace the US dollar in international trade will reach a new high when BRICS nations discuss the feasibility of introducing a common currency at a summit in South Africa later this year, Chinese experts said on Sunday, noting that the move can be a fresh blow against the dollar’s hegemony.
The BRICS group of nations will discuss the issue, which is likely be on the agenda of a meeting of the nations’ heads of state in Johannesburg on August 22, Bloomberg reported recently, citing the foreign minister of South Africa.
Experts said the desire for a currency that offers better accessibility and fairer treatment in international trade is the main objective for BRICS nations. They pointed out that the US dollar, used as a tool for the US to exercise international hegemony, has caused great uncertainty for the recovery of the world economy.
Zhou Yu, director of the Research Center of International Finance at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday that the discussion is likely to be a probing effort by BRICS countries for a long-term goal of a currency unit.
“Despite the daunting difficulties such an effort faces, it is not entirely impossible for these nations to have such a currency unit”, Zhou said.
The creation of a unified currency for a group of countries usually takes a long time and requires years of cooperation, and eventually means phasing out local currencies, Zhou said, taking the birth of the euro as an example.
“However, currently the effort by BRICS nations seems to be focused on devising a currency unit used specifically to settle cross-border trade, rather than a currency unit to replace other local currencies, which reduces the difficulty of such efforts and increases its plausibility”, Zhou said.
