Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with the heads of BRICS member states' media agencies in Moscow on October 18, 2024, ahead Of Kazan Summit. (Photo by Sputnik via AFP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that most of the world’s economic growth will be accomplished through the framework of the new BRICS group of emerging countries, not the West.
Putin met with the heads of BRICS member states’ media agencies, ahead of the 16th BRICS Summit, which is being held in Kazan under Russia’s chairmanship.
He told journalists that the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will generate most of the global economic growth in the coming years thanks to its size and relatively fast growth compared with that of developed Western nations.
He said Moscow hopes to expand BRICS -- which has already added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as its new members -- to create a powerful economic association acting as a counterweight to the Western hegemony in its efforts to dominate current world politics and international business.
Putin said 30 countries around the world have expressed interest in cooperation with the BRICS grouping and that next week’s summit will consider possible options for the group’s further enlargement.
He said world trade will be led by BRICS in the near future. “The countries in our association are essentially the drivers of global economic growth,” he said.
“BRICS will generate the main increase in global GDP,” Putin said.
The Russian leader said soon all the mechanisms will be in place to conduct international trade independent from the dollar.
“The economic growth of BRICS members will increasingly depend less on external influence or interference. This is essentially economic sovereignty.”
Putin said BRICS, not the West, will drive global economic growth in the foreseeable future.
BRICS countries are working together in an attempt to overhaul the global financial system and end the dominance of the US dollar used by Washington as a weapon against others.
“The doors are open, we are not barring anyone,” Putin said.
He cited some of the initiatives that Russia has previously outlined ahead of the summit, including a joint cross-border payments system and a reinsurance company.
He said group members are working on a SWIFT-like financial messaging system immune to Western sanctions and the use of national digital currencies in financing investment projects with high growth potential inside and outside BRICS.
Putin said Russia’s financial initiatives for the summit imply the extensive use of national currencies, while the talk of creating a single currency for the BRICS grouping is “premature”.
Putin called for investments in technology and infrastructure across the countries of the Global South by the BRICS’ New Development Bank.
“As a development institution, the bank already serves as an alternative to many Western financial mechanisms, and we will naturally continue to develop it,” Putin said.
Putin also sought to promote Russia’s new transport megaprojects such as the Arctic Sea Route and the North-to-South corridor which links Russia to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean via Iran.
“It is the key to increasing freight transportation between the Eurasian and African continents,” he said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will attend the summit, Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, confirmed this week.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also attend the BRICS summit in Russia.
The Kazan Summit is scheduled to be held from Tuesday to Thursday.
The BRICS group represents a quarter of the world’s GDP and about two-fifth of the world’s population.
