Ambitious Agenda, Urgent Answers: BRICS Leaders Meet at Critical Juncture

SBS Australia

3 days ago

As leaders of the BRICS group of nations gather in Rio de Janeiro, some 17,000 soldiers and police officers have been deployed throughout the city. With ample security in place, Leaders and officials from the growing bloc are meeting in Brazil for their annual summit. President of this year's BRICS Committee, Pedro Vormittag, says the 2025 summit may be the most crucial to date. "It is hard to think of a time in history over the past decades in which the agenda was so ambitious, and the answers were so urgent. No matter what the outcome is going to be, it is going to be a historic meeting." Looming US tariffs and conflicts abroad are expected to dominate the forum agenda this year, alongside global health policy, climate change and artificial intelligence. Leaders at the summit have already taken aim at United States President Donald Trump's tariffs as well as the recent Israeli-U-S attacks on Iran. Taking place just days before the US tariffs are set to come into effect, Mr Vormittag says trade will be central. "There is a very big concern about trade. In other words, how is it that the countries that are part of BRICS are going to improve and actually increase the level of trade and the level of business at large that they can have with each other. So now that the global context is actually making these questions more urgent, I think BRICS has been prepared to address these issues for a while now." The BRICS group, which originally consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, held their first summit in 2009. The acronym BRIC was first used by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill to describe the four economies he thought, if growth were maintained, could dominate the global economy by 2050. The first BRICS summit affirmed the group's commitment to a multi-polar world order, challenging U-S hegemony and calling for an alternative to the U-S dollar as the global reserve currency. President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, says recent global events show why the grouping is so necessary. PORTUGUESE THEN ENGLISH VO:"Faced with the resurgence of protectionism, it is up to emerging nations to defend the multilateral trade model, and reform the international financial architecture. BRICS remains the guarantor of a promising future." In 2011, South Africa joined and the acronym was changed to BRICS. Their addition symbolised the group's shift away from a specific economic designation, instead focusing on the creation of a more inclusive group of emerging leaders. Then, at the 2023 summit in South Africa, the group announced the admission of Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Argentina. However, Saudi Arabia is yet to join formally, and the election of Argentina's president Javier Milei saw Argentina turn down membership. Combined, the BRICS nations make up for nearly 40 per cent of the global economy, representing almost half the world's population. Speaking ahead of the 2025 summit, UAE Assistant Minister for Economic and Trade Affairs Saeed Al-Hajeri says the BRICS bloc is still growing in power. "If you look at GDP growth over the next 10 years, those economies (of BRICS countries) are growing above the GDP of global economies. Economically they are a large group and they represent a very diverse group of different economies, and another way of looking at diverse strategies, where you can look at Global South as the future of growth. It's a very powerful group." With an International Criminal Court warrant out for his arrest, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been forced to stay home or else risks arrest from I-C-C member states such as South Africa. Attending the summit via video call, Mr Putin says the period of U-S dominance in international relations is coming to an end. 'We all see that the world is undergoing fundamental changes. The unipolar system of international relations, serving the interests of the so-called 'golden billion', is becoming a thing of the past. It is being replaced by a more just, multi-polar world. The process of changing the global economic order continues to gain momentum. Everything indicates that the liberal globalization model is becoming outdated. The centre of business activity is shifting towards emerging markets, which is triggering a powerful wave of growth, including in the BRICS countries.' Another notable absence from this year's summit was Chinese President Xi Jinping, who for the first time in over a decade skipped the summit, instead sending his prime minister. Over the past two decades, BRICS has come to be seen as a Chinese-driven counterbalance to US and western European power. However, the recent expansion has led to increased division among members. Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva says prosperity cannot be achieved amid so much global conflict. 'There will be no prosperity in a conflicted world. The end of wars and conflicts that are accumulating is one of the responsibilities of heads of state and government. It is clear that the lack of leadership exacerbates the multiple crises our society is facing. I'm sure that this forum and the BRICS summit, which starts tomorrow, will point to solutions rather than barriers, promoting integration." So far, major achievements of the group include the formation of the New Development Bank, creating an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. By financing infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the global south, the NDB also works to reduce dependence on the United States. 2025 will be the first year Indonesia joins the group. Mari Elka Pangestu is the Indonesian President's Special Envoy for International Trade and Multilateral Cooperation. She says the more countries that join BRICS, the more beneficial the New Development Bank can become. "If you look at the economic benefits of joining BRICS is the New Development Bank, which is still quite small, but, you know, potentially it can become also a regional or maybe a multilateral bank, which is really based and founded by developing countries. So participating in that and having the financing, the access to the financing for projects are benefiting the BRICS countries."