Weighted Relationship: BRICS partners will receive this status from January 1
BRICS partner countries will officially receive this status from January 1, 2025, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko confirmed to Izvestia. In addition to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, Vietnam has also accepted the invitation, he said. Thus, ASEAN countries will make up a significant part of the future partners of the association. In total, the list of potential BRICS partners includes 13 countries. So far, only President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has announced about obtaining the relevant status. How the group is strengthening its position in the international arena - in the material of "Izvestia".
Which countries will become BRICS partners
A new category - BRICS partners - was presented at the summit of the association in Kazan - a key event under the auspices of the Russian presidency. So far, none of the member countries of the group has officially announced the full list of partners, but some things are already known, such as the fact that the list includes 13 countries. This, in particular, was stated by Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal, who emphasized that it was a collective decision within BRICS.
On November 15, the Russian Foreign Ministry also made an official statement. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin said that Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have become BRICS partners. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, who oversees the Asian direction, confirmed to Izvestia that these countries will officially become partners of the association from January 1, 2025. Vietnam will also join them. According to Andrei Rudenko, Moscow sent an invitation to Hanoi to become a BRICS partner, to which the latter responded positively.
- All these countries, almost half of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have declared their desire to join BRICS as a partner state. <....> And Vietnam too," the deputy minister emphasized.
According to information circulated in the media, Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Turkey, Uganda and Uzbekistan have also become partners.
Thus, a significant part of the future partners represent one region and belong to the most dynamic economies of the world. This is especially important given that at the time of its founding in 2006, the BRIC, represented by Brazil, Russia, India and China (South Africa became a member only in 2011, turning the association into BRICS), claimed to be the organization of the four largest non-Western economies. Indonesia is now the largest economy in SEA, growing by 5% annually over the past few years. Thailand's GDP growth accelerated to a two-year high of 3% in Q3 2024. An optimistic forecast is given by the Central Bank of Malaysia: an increase of 4 to 5% is expected in 2024. Vietnam's GDP grew by 6.82% in the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, who arrived to participate in the 16th BRICS summit, during the welcoming ceremony at Kazan airport. October 22, 2024
- If cooperation is successful, the four countries can set a positive example for the other six ASEAN member states, and they will also be ready to join the most ambitious global initiative today. However, for the cooperation to become successful in practice, it is necessary to quickly and effectively implement the projects that the new BRICS partners are counting on: to create a single platform for interbank payments, free trade zones, new transport corridors and logistics routes, to link the EAEU and ASEAN with investment initiatives," Kirill Babaev, Director of ICSA RAS, President of the National Coordination Center for International Business Cooperation, told Izvestia.
ASEAN also includes Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and the Philippines. Cambodia and Laos are the most likely to join - at least they are discussing potential participation in one format or another. Myanmar has already officially indicated that it would like to participate in BRICS as an observer country. The Philippines is still only taking a closer look at the group - after all, the country's leadership has taken a rather pro-American course, and the West considers the association to be at least a Chinese project, if not a Russian one. Singapore's participation is quite unlikely - the city-state is on the list of unfriendly countries approved by the Russian government.
Participants at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers' meeting in Laos. July 25, 2024
Kirill Kotkov, head of the Center for the Study of the Far East in St. Petersburg, told Izvestia that Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam have a balanced foreign policy and therefore see BRICS as a window of opportunity, which eventually leads to partnership.
BRICS is gaining weight in the international arena
The speed at which the BRICS is scaling up cannot be overlooked. Since January 1, 2024, the association has almost doubled in size. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE have joined. As Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized, BRICS already covers a third of the land area (33%) and almost half of the world's population (45%). And this is quite a weighty application for participation in the formation of a multipolar world, which many member countries aspire to.
True, it is worth noting that there have been misfires in the planned expansion. For example, Saudi Arabia has not officially joined BRICS. For a long time, its participation was the subject of speculation, which, however, was dispelled by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. Following the Kazan summit, the diplomat noted that the country takes part in the events of the association, but is in the status of an invited country. After the election of President Javier Miley, who took a pro-American course, Argentina refused to participate.
Plenary Session of the XVI BRICS Outreach / BRICS Plus Summit. Kazan, October 24, 2024
However, interest in BRICS is not waning, as demonstrated by the summit - Vladimir Putin managed to gather 35 countries in Kazan, despite the West's attempts to organize a political and economic blockade of Moscow against the backdrop of the Ukrainian conflict. There are already some statements from the participating countries about the future of the partnership.
For example, President Alexander Lukashenko personally announced that Belarus has become a BRICS partner country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia said that it gives a "positive response" to the invitation to become a partner. According to the head of the department, Celinda Sosa, Cuba made a similar decision. Vladimir Putin said that Kazakhstan was sent an official invitation. Turkey and Uganda reported about the receipt of the proposal. The Foreign Ministry of Nigeria said that the country has already become a partner of BRICS, at least that's how the local publication The PUNCH reports.
The inclusion of both new member countries and now partners certainly increases the international weight and value of BRICS.
- For one thing, until 2022, the association was seen as something of a forum. Now it is mostly seen as an alternative to many platforms and international institutions, primarily Western-centric ones. This includes the G20, and some are even already talking about the UN, the IMF, and the World Bank. For many developing countries, BRICS is becoming a more systemic alternative to diversify foreign economic and trade relations to reduce dependence on the dollar and solve the problem of food and energy security," Alexander Korolev, political scientist, candidate of political science, deputy director of the Central Committee of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia.
At the same time, despite the growing interest, the BRICS founding countries should realize that the future of the economic world order on the planet depends on the speed and coherence of concrete work on the development of economic interaction, Kirill Babaev concluded.
