BRICS receives membership requests from 19 countries

Nineteen countries expressed an interest in joining the BRICS group of nations, included 13 countries have formally requested accession and anther six have asked informally, South Africa’s Ambassador to the Group, Anil Sooklal.

The requests came as the organisation prepares to hold an annual summit in South Africa’s Durban in late August this year.

The emerging-markets of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will meet in the annual meeting which will be hold at Cape Town on June 2-3 to discuss its enlargement, Sooklal added.

Sooklal mentioned that Saudi Arabia and Iran are among the countries who’ve formally asked to join, Anil Sooklal said in February. He further added “what will be discussed is the expansion of BRICS and the modalities of how this will happen.”

Other States that have expressed interest in joining include Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain and Indonesia, together with two East African States and one West African — which it has not identified.

BRICS is an acronym that started as BRIC in 2001, coined by Jim O’Neil (a Goldman Sachs economist) for Brazil, China, India, and Russia. Later in 2010, South Africa was added to become BRICS.