These countries come from Asia, Africa, South America and are all emerging economies that want to use their local currencies for transactions instead of the US dollar.
According to Watcher.guru, this development shows that BRICS is beneficial for emerging economies as the bloc provides solutions to help their local currencies grow. The BRICS emerging economies bloc is at the forefront of the de-dollarization agenda and developing countries find this initiative effective.
In addition to the 23 countries that have formally applied to join the bloc, 24 countries have expressed their desire to join BRICS informally. This brings the total number of countries interested in joining BRICS to 47 – potentially making BRICS the group with the largest number of member states on the planet.
By comparison, the European Union (EU) currently has 27 member states. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has 32 members. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has 10 members...
The BRICS summit is scheduled to be held in Kazan, Russia from October 22 to 24. Some important discussions on trade and new agreements may come up at the summit. BRICS may also discuss the wider use of local currencies, not the US dollar, for cross-border transactions.
Returning to the issue of admitting new countries, the current BRICS bloc of nine countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates) seems divided.
While China and Russia want BRICS to expand, India wants to put a moratorium on new countries joining. India has signaled it wants to put a moratorium on new countries joining the bloc for at least five years.
This gives BRICS breathing space and policy decisions that are in line with the ambitions of the 9-member bloc. However, it is necessary to wait and watch the upcoming 16th BRICS summit for the decision to expand the bloc.
