The BRICS conference is underway in Kazan, but which group of countries?

At the moment it is in Kazan, Russia the BRICS summit is underway. It is organized by Vladimir Putinbut what exactly are his plans? And which countries are part of BRICS?

Key Takeaways

• For a long time, BRICS consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These came together as five new major economic countries.
• The BRICS was expanded this year by several new countries, and many more have applied.
• The group wants to go against the current world order by supporting each other economically, without asking too many questions about political differences that could be there.

The intergovernmental organization came into existence a little by chance in 2006. The CEO of the investment bank Goldman Sachs was tired of writing the names of Brazil, Russia, India and China as a whole. These four countries were then four of the new economic powers that began to gather.

It would eventually take another three years before the first BRIC summit. There, the leaders of these countries – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev, Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao – discussed how they could put more weight on the global economic agenda. In 2010, South Africa, Africa’s largest economy, joined the group and the name BRICS was born.

A big expansion

At the 2023 BRICS summit in South Africa, members discussed enlargement for the first time. Then Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates received an official invitation. Argentina rejected that invitation, while Saudi Arabia has not yet responded officially. The other four have been official members since the beginning of 2024.

According to Putin, it still is 34 countries who want to become members of BRICS. One of these countries is Turkey. They submitted their application last month. To complete that application, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is even attending the BRICS summit in Kazan. Turkey’s potential membership is quite remarkable. So they would be the first member of NATO to be part of BRICS. Erdogan seems to be clearly telling NATO that their membership is not unconditional.

A new world order

This expansion shows that BRICS is becoming increasingly powerful. The nine countries that are now members already represent 37 percent of global GDP. At the moment, the cooperation appears to be largely economic. For example, Russia largely managed to offset the negative effects of the sanctions as a result of its invasion of Ukraine by doing additional trade with China and India.

Politically, the BRICS are rather different. The recent expansion will only increase that difference. The meeting in Kazan is also used by Putin to warn the West that he is not alone.