BRICS summit to extend agendas of G20 Hangzhou Summit: expert
By Xing Xue, People’s Daily
Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 8th BRICS Summit to be held in Goa, India on October 15 and 16. Experts pointed out that the Goa summit, themed “Building Responsive, Inclusive and Collective Solutions”, will see continuity in the agenda with the just-concluded G20 Summit.
The Goa Summit, coming one month after the leaders of five BRICS members gathered in Hangzhou for an informal meeting, has great significance, said Li Jianmin, researcher at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European & Central Asian Studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The two meetings, both emphasizing “inclusiveness and interconnection”, have similarities in their agendas, Li explained. “During the Goa meeting, more specific plans concerning the developing countries will be released based on the initiative and consensus reached during the G20 Hangzhou Summit,” he added.
As representatives of emerging economies around the world, the BRICS nations are now also important G20 members. Currently, the BRICS countries contribute 43 percent to world’s population, 37 percent to its GDP and 17 percent to global trade.
“BRICS countries play a leading role in emerging markets and developing countries, and are important members of the G20 as well,” Xi said, stressing the importance of BRICS nations at last month’s informal leaders’ meeting.
The informal meeting, as a regular event of G20 Summits since 2013, aims to enhance the communication and coordination among the BRICS countries, and enhance their voice in the international community.
Li believed that the priority for the BRICS countries is to take measures to develop their own economies and further consolidate their consensus amid sluggish global growth.
To this end, he advised the BRICS countries to come up with widely accepted blueprint and strategy and launch all-round cooperation in trade, investment, finance and production capacity to create new driving forces of development. They should enhance international cooperation to cope with domestic challenges, he added.
According to the scholar, BRICS members also need to speak for the developing countries and beef up coordination on major international issues to safeguard their common interests.
He also called for these members to engage in global governance; promote the reform of multilateral organizations; strengthen communication on issues like the establishment of international financial security network, unexpected economic risks, trade protectionism of major economies, counter-terrorism and climate change; and shoulder responsibility for supply of global goods.
“BRICS countries, in terms of both size and development potential, are a major driving force for the long-term growth of the world economy,” Li commented, adding that all the members are now adjusting their strategies to cope with the impact of the global financial crisis.
“China and India have maintained a faster pace of development, Russia is on the rise after hitting the bottom, Brazil has stepped out of the most difficult time and South Africa is also picking up,” he illustrated.
The BRICS countries will maintain a strong growth momentum and serve as growth engine for world economy through innovation-driven development, the researcher stressed.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong also said at a recent press conference that since the establishment of their cooperation mechanism 10 years ago, BRICS countries have expanded their cooperation areas and improved the mechanism.
