15th BRICS Summit 2023: History, significance, top agendas, and more

PM Modi departed for the 15th BRICS Summit 2023, which will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 22 to August 24, 2023. Check here the top points of the summit

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has departed to participate in the 15th BRICS Summit, which is scheduled to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The BRICS summit will begin from today, August 22, and will conclude on August 24, 2023. 

PM Modi will meet prominent world leaders in Johannesburg as he was invited by the South African President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa to attend the BRICS Summit.

History of BRICS

The term BRIC was first introduced in the 2001 publication, Building Better Global Economic BRICs by Jim O'Neill, who was the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management at that time. Roopa Purushothaman, research assistant at the original report coined the term BRICs.

BRICS denote the group of fastest-growing economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that would collectively dominate the world economy by the year 2050.

The BRIC country leaders held their first meeting in July 2006 at St. Petersburg, Russia in an 8 Outreach Summit. 

The first BRIC summit took place in Yekaterinburg, Russia on June 16, 2009, after conducting a series of high-level meetings. 

When the BRIC country Foreign Ministers held a meeting in New York in September 2010 they accepted South Africa as a full member and then the BRIC was renamed as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Consequently, South Africa attended the 3rd BRICS Summit held in Sanya, China, on April 14, 2011.

BRICS Significance

BRICS is a group of emerging economies comprising 41 per cent of the world population and 24 per cent of the GDP, and more than 16 per cent share in world trade. 

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BRICS countries are believed to be the main engines of the global economy in the coming years. In the recent period,  BRICS nations came together to conduct meetings on important issues such as political and security, people-to-people exchanges, and economic and financial and cultural.

15th BRICS Summit: Top agendas for the meeting 

Here are the top agendas for the 15th BRICS summit:

Expansion of BRICS nations is one of the key agenda of the 15th BRICS Summit. All the bloc members first need to agree on new criteria new members need to meet.

The group will also discuss reducing the dollar's dominance, and several BRICS nations have already begun their trade in local currencies.

The trade by BRICS nations surged by 56 per cent to reach $422 billion in the past five years. In these transactions, New Development Bank, earlier known as BRICS Development Bank, will work as a medium for such transactions. India proposed the idea of setting up a bank at the 4th BRICS in 2012 held in Delhi.

Also Read: BRICS to provide opportunity to identify future areas of cooperation: Modi

What is the theme of the 15th BRICS Summit 2023?

The theme for the 15th BRICS summit is "BRICS and Africa: Partnership for mutually accelerated growth, sustainable development and inclusive multilateralism".