China said on Friday that it actively supports Russia’s move to expand the BRICS bloc.
China, which is holding the rotating Presidency of BRICS bloc this year, said on Friday that it actively supports the expansion of the five-member group, a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Saudi Arabia and Argentina desired to join the grouping.
Riyadh and Buenos Aires have shown interest in BRICS activities, Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview on Thursday.
“The interest in it (BRICS) is shown by our Saudi friends and Argentina, which stated the desire to become a full-fledged BRICS member, coming from the mouth of its (Argentina) Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero,” Lavrov said.
The next BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit is being prepared, Lavrov said. “The outreach format will be established within its framework, where around a dozen developing economies will participate,” he added.
Responding to Lavrov’s BRICS expansion comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a media briefing here that “as the BRICS Chair this year, China actively supports the start of the BRICS expansion process and broadens ‘BRICS Plus’ cooperation”.
Wang said the recently-held meeting of BRICS Ministers of Foreign Affairs reached consensus on the BRICS expansion process and held the first-ever ‘BRICS Plus’ foreign ministers’ meeting, “which fully shows that the BRICS cooperation is open and inclusive”.
China will work on BRICS-related parties to continue to have in-depth discussions on BRICS expansion and determine the standards and procedures for that on the basis of consensus.
“We look forward to more like-minded partners joining the big family of BRICS,” he said.
Foreign Ministers and top officials of Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, the UAE and Thailand took part in the foreign ministers meeting of the five-member group held virtually on May 19 under Beijing’s ‘BRICS Plus’ initiative.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took part in the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting convened by his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
China is making preparations to hold this year’s BRICS summit, dates for which are yet to be announced.
