“The doors are open to representatives of a wide variety of economic and political systems and macro-regions,” declared Friday S. Lavrov, before a meeting of foreign ministers of the group of BRICS in Nizhny Novgorod in June. “The only condition is that you agree to work on the basis of the key principle: the sovereign equality of States, which our Western colleagues cannot do,” he continued.
The goal of cooperation within the framework of BRICS, the head of Russian diplomacy emphasized, is to create the necessary conditions for the economic growth of the participating countries, and the development of partnership within the framework of this organization is a strategic priority for Moscow, which chairs the group this year. According to him, after the accession of five new member countries to the BRICS at the start of the year (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Iran), the countries of the association occupy more than 30% of the land surface and bring together 3.6 billion inhabitants, or 45% of the world population. The total GDP at purchasing power parity, if we take the five founding countries of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), exceeded that of the G7, recalled the Russian minister, citing data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) : at the end of 2023, the five founding countries of BRICS had a GDP of 58,900 billion dollars (33.5% of world GDP), while those of the G7 weighed 5,000 billion less.
Pavel Knyazev, sub-sherpa of the Russian Federation within the BRICS, previously said that Russia expected about 20-25 countries at the Council of Foreign Ministers of the BRICS scheduled for June 10 and 11 in Nizhny Novgorod.
