Russian President Putin attended the BRICS Business Forum held in Moscow, Russia on October 18, 2024.
Alexander Zemlyanichenko | Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the majority of global economic growth in the coming years will come from the BRICS countries due to their size and relatively fast growth compared with developed Western countries.
Putin wants to create the BRICS – which has expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as well as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a powerful counterweight to the West in global politics and trade. .
Kremlin leaders will host the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan from October 22 to 24.
Putin told officials and business people at the BRICS business forum in Moscow: “The countries in our alliance are essentially the driving force of global economic growth. For the foreseeable future, BRICS will be the driver of global GDP growth. Main motivation.
“The economic growth of the BRICS countries will rely less and less on external influence or interference. This is essentially economic sovereignty,” Putin added.
Moscow is pointing to next week’s summit as evidence that Western efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine have failed.
Russia wants other countries to work with it to reform the global financial system and end the dollar’s dominance.
China, India and the United Arab Emirates confirmed on Friday that their leaders would attend the Kazan summit.
“The door is open”
Putin said that 30 countries around the world have expressed interest in cooperating with BRICS, and next week’s summit will consider possible options for further expansion of BRICS.
Cuba was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Friday after a major power plant collapsed.
“The door is open and we will not ban anyone,” Putin told BRICS reporters.
Putin listed some initiative Russia previously outlined the plan ahead of the summit, which would include a joint cross-border payments system and reinsurance companies.
Putin said that members of the group are developing a financial information system similar to SWIFT that is not affected by Western sanctions and using national digital currencies to provide financing for investment projects with high growth potential within and outside the BRICS countries.
He stressed that the financial measures proposed by Russia at the summit meant widespread use of national currencies and that discussions on creating a single currency for the BRICS grouping were “premature.”
He called on the BRICS New Development Bank, the only functioning multilateral development institution of the BRICS countries, to invest in technology and infrastructure in countries of the Global South.
“As a development institution, the bank has become an alternative to many Western financial mechanisms and we will naturally continue to develop it,” Putin said, calling for greater investment in e-commerce and artificial intelligence.
Putin seeks to promote Russia’s new mega-transportation projects, such as the Arctic Ocean Route and the North-South Corridor, which would connect Russia to the Gulf and Indian Ocean via the Caspian Sea and Iran.
“This is key to increasing freight between Eurasia and the African continent,” he said.
