Brics countries can promote peace, stand against ‘new cold war’: China’s Wang Yi

Foreign ministers from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa were joined by their counterparts from new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, at the two-day summit in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, which assumed chairmanship of the Brics grouping in January. Saudi Arabia also sent a representative.

In his remarks on Monday, Wang welcomed the bloc’s expansion and celebrated interstate cooperation over the past year, which he said has been “remarkable, rapid and strong”.

“The strategic significance and political effects of the ‘greater Brics’ should be fully leveraged to make Brics a new type of multilateral cooperation mechanism based on emerging markets and developing countries, and [one that is] open and inclusive to the world,” he said, according to a report from Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

The combined Brics gross domestic product in purchasing power parity terms amounts to about one-third of world GDP, exceeding that of the Group of Seven.

Wang said the Global South was “gaining strength through unity” and should promote “equitable and orderly” multipolarism to set the tone for future global development.