New BRICS members seek development opportunities, fairer world order

Published: September 01,2023

While hailing their inclusion into BRICS, the new member countries called for a fairer and balanced world order and hoped the bloc would boost development.

At the just-concluded 15th BRICS Summit, six countries, namely Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), were officially invited to join BRICS.

The invitation was warmly welcomed by leaders and analysts of the six countries. Many expect the mechanism to bring more development opportunities.

WIN-WIN COOPERATION

Based on the World Bank’s economic statistics in 2022, the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the BRICS countries, after the expansion, will account for 28.99 percent of the global GDP instead of the previous 25.77 percent.

The sheer economic size brings huge economic, trade, and investment opportunities for its members.

“The group will help Egypt continue its moves to liberate the economy, expand markets, and increase exports,” said Gamal Bayoumi, head of the Cairo-based Arab Investors Union.

Egypt’s BRICS membership will enable it to obtain soft loans from the bloc’s New Development Bank instead of borrowing money at high interest rates from other international banks, he said.

“Egypt’s accession to BRICS will increase its exports and investment opportunities as well as the inflows of foreign investment,” said Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait.

The BRICS grouping provides a great opportunity to strengthen and diversify the partnerships among Global South countries, said Ebrahim Hashem, former advisor to the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Office.

He said that having the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the BRICS grouping will help better coordinate energy policies among some key energy producers and consumers, promoting oil and energy market stability and predictability.

For Iran, joining BRICS could help it offset Western isolation, both economically and politically, said AbasAslani, an expert on Iran’s foreign policy, adding that it is a step forward in the country’s efforts to join international and regional organizations and groups.

BALANCED WORLD ORDER

Naser Abdel-Aal, a political science professor at Suez Canal University, regarded the BRICS expansion as “an influential step toward a world order with a fairer distribution of resources.”

He said that BRICS is an international partnership that seeks to create a mutually beneficial order catering to each member state’s unique attributes, particularly the developing countries.

There is a widening gap between the actual role of emerging markets in the global system and their ability to participate in the decision-making processes of global institutions, said Melaku Mulualem, senior international relations and diplomacy researcher at Ethiopia’s Institute of Strategic Affairs.

“The economies of these countries have grown over the past decades. However, their political voices remain limited since the existing global system has remained mostly unchanged,” he said.

Mulualem stressed that BRICS seeks to enhance Global South cooperation and fairer world governance, as well as participation in decision-making processes in global organizations like the IMF and World Bank.

Saeed Okasha, an expert at Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said the future of BRICS is promising, noting “I believe if BRICS presents a model based on mutual and win-win cooperation to serve all, it will greatly lead to the success of this model and the BRICS project.” 

Xinhua