BRICS Zirvesi Putin’in vereceği akşam yemeğiyle başlıyor
BRICS Summit starts with Putin's dinner
16. The BRICS summit starts today in Kazan, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the Kremlin, representatives from 32 countries, 24 of whom are state leaders, are expected to attend the event, which will be held in the semi-autonomous Republic of Tatarstan, which is part of Russia.
The summit will officially begin in the evening with a "friendly dinner" in which all the incoming leaders will attend. However, before that, Putin will start a series of bilateral meetings that will continue both after the dinner and in the coming days.
The Russian President will meet today with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Leaders are expected to address a wide range of issues.
Putin will also meet with the President of the New Development Bank, former President of Brazil Dilma Rouseff. This meeting will be the third meeting with Rouseff after Putin took office at the New Development Bank.
Expansion agenda
The BRICS, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, recently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
The BRICS group currently accounts for 45% of the world's population and 35% of its economy by purchasing power parity.
Putin said that 34 countries, including Turkey, expressed their wish to join the bloc.
While experts predict that the summit will focus on the expansion of the BRICS, Russian officials draw attention to the BRICS' adaptability and the long-standing growth agenda.
While BRICS Western centers were seen as an alternative to institutions, Putin told reporters from the BRICS countries that “BRICS did not put itself against anyone” and that the change in the driving forces of global growth was just a fact.
"This is a union of states working together on the basis of common values, a common vision of development and, most importantly, the principle of considering each other's interests," he said.
While opening the BRICS summit, global finance chiefs also gathered in Washington for the IMF meeting.
Xi and Modi attend the summit, Lula is absent due to 'illness'
Chinese President Xi Jinping, along with Chinese Communist Party senior Cai Qi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, flew to Russia earlier today to attend the summit.
Xi is expected to hold bilateral talks as part of the summit, focusing on key issues such as finance, technology, food trade and the expansion of the bloc's membership.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also attend the meeting, but Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has canceled her trip on medical advice to temporarily avoid long-haul flights following a head injury at home, which caused a minor brain hemorrhage.
In a statement before his move to Russia, the Indian Prime Minister said that India values close cooperation within the BRICS, which has become an important platform for dialogue and discussion of global agenda issues.
According to the news in India Today, "India values close cooperation within the BRICS, which has become an important platform for dialogue and debate on issues such as the global development agenda, reformed multilateralism, climate change, economic cooperation, creating durable supply chains, promoting cultural and human-to-human connectivity," Modi said in the news.
BRICS VS G7
The abbreviation BRIC was introduced in 2001 by then's Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill in a research paper that highlights the enormous growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China over this century.
Russia, India and China began to meet more formally, and eventually Brazil, followed by South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has not yet officially joined.
According to the data of the International Monetary Fund, it is estimated that the share of the BRICS in global GDP will increase to 37% by the end of this decade, and the share of the G7, which consists of 7 major Western economies, will decline from 30% to approximately 28% this year.
Alternative payment systems against sanctions
Russia calls on the BRICS countries to create an alternative platform for international payments, immune to Western sanctions.
At this summit, alternative payment methods are expected to come to the fore again.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the Serbian newspaper Politika in an interview published on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry that significant developments regarding mutual payment mechanisms in BRICS countries can be expected after the summit in Kazan.
“I believe that everyone will see important developments in this field as a result of the summit in Kazan. As our Chinese friends said, 'a thousand miles journey begins with a single small step'. I think we will take a first step that is not very small," he said.
However, Ryabkov stated that a "big leap forward" should not be expected. He added that this will probably be an evolutionary process because the BRICS works on the basis of reconciliation.
“We have a long way to go from payments made with national currencies to the creation of a single BRICS currency,” the diplomat said.