• The top leaders of the BRICS nations have decided to admit Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as full members of the grouping.

• The decision to induct the six countries to join the bloc from January 1, 2024 was announced by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on the final day of the 15th annual summit of the BRICS in Johannesburg.

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva joined South African President Ramaphosa for the summit in Johannesburg. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the summit remotely. 

• South Africa is the current Chair of the five-nation bloc.

• Brazil, India, China and South Africa also extended their full support to Russia for its BRICS Chairship in 2024 and the holding of the 16th BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

• With the entry of the six countries, the total number of members in the grouping is reaching 11 from the current five. 

• In deciding in favour of an expansion, BRICS leaders left the door open to future enlargement as dozens more countries voiced interest in joining a grouping.

• Around 40 countries had shown interest in joining BRICS out of which 23 formally applied for the membership.

• The decision to expand the bloc is seen as an effort to reshape global governance while putting the voices of the Global South as a key priority area to advance the overall development agenda.

• PM Modi said the expansion and modernisation of BRICS is a message that all institutions in the world need to mould themselves according to changing times.

The BRICS nations

• The BRICS nations or Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa form the five key pillars of south-south cooperation and are the representative voice of emerging markets and developing countries in the global forums such as the G20.

• The BRICS represent 41 per cent of the world population, 29 per cent of the global surface area and account for over 24 per cent of the global GDP.

• The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, ‘The World Needs Better Economic BRICs’ on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the four economies would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be amongst the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.

• The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit in July 2006. Shortly afterwards, in September 2006, the group was formalised as BRIC during the First BRIC Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which met on the sidelines of the General Debate of the UN Assembly in New York City.

• After a series of high level meetings, the first BRIC summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 16, 2009.

• It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministers meeting in New York in September 2010. Accordingly, South Africa attended the third BRICS Summit in Sanya on April 14, 2011. 

• In 2014, the BRICS nations established the New Development Bank (NDB). It has an initial authorised capital of $100 billion and initial subscribed capital of $50 billion of which $10 billion is paid-in capital.

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