Durban - The expansion of BRICS to include countries that want to join the grouping could see it expand to include more than 50 countries, Professor Anil Sooklal, Ambassador-at-Large for Asia and BRICS and South Africa's BRICS Sherpa said on Tuesday.
Sooklal said many countries, including Egypt, the UAE, Indonesia and Argentina, are coalescing around BRICS and wanting to become members.
The BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and hosts South Africa will gather next month at the Sandton Convention Centre in Gauteng for the 15th summit.
Sooklal said the issue of a BRICS currency or “de-dollarisation” was not on the agenda of the summit.
“We will expand on addressing the idea of deepening interaction in trading in local currencies. Countries want to have greater flexibility and to be less dependent on the dollar.”
“There is a movement away from a ‘dollarcentric’ world to a world where you have greater choice.”
Sooklal said BRICS was proving to be attractive because of its economic might and financial acumen and strength.
“Even in terms of the reserve holdings, there are four major BRICS countries in the top 10 of global country rankings.
“BRICS must be seen as a catalyst to bring change to the world for the better.”
Sooklal said the world economy had been dominated by the same countries since the end of World War II.
“BRICS represents the world of the future and the global South has risen and become increasingly influential.
“The major global economies are from the developing world.”
He said that India, in under 10 years, had gone from being the eleventh to the fifth largest global economy.
“China is now the second largest global economy. With the expansion of BRICS, it could increase to include more than 50 countries.”