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Beijing Review Exclusive
Special> Chinese President Xi Jinping's Visit to Latin America to Include BRICS Summit> Beijing Review Exclusive
UPDATED: April 1, 2013 NO. 14 APRIL 4, 2013
BRICS Assembles in Africa
Emerging economies team up with Africa for greater economic influence
By Ding Ying
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BRICS and African countries are like-minded friends with extensive common interests, the Chinese president said, noting that the rise of Africa brings opportunities to BRICS countries, just as the development of BRICS countries brings opportunities to the continent.

A confident future

"BRICS has demonstrated its vitality, and it will play a big role in global governance in the future," Chen said.

Statistics can illustrate the potential possessed by the BRICS. The five major emerging economies cover nearly 30 percent of the land territory of the world, and 42 percent of the world's population. BRICS countries have made a great contribution to the global economy in the past years. In 2003, the GDP of Brazil, Russia, India and China combined was about 9 percent of the world's total. By 2009, their share of global GDP had grown to 14 percent. After South Africa joined the group in 2010, BRICS GDP was 18 percent of the global total that year. During the past 10 years, the total GDP of BRICS rose from $3 trillion to $13 trillion.

Chen pointed out that the rapid development of BRICS is based on the members' common interests. "The five emerging countries share the common demand of working together for better development," he said.

Moreover, BRICS countries share the goals of enhancing developing countries' role in global governance and enabling them to have a bigger say on international issues.

Furthermore, during the process of their emergence, the five countries will discover greater strategic interests. Their cooperation will thereby deepen in more areas, said Chen.

Since all BRICS members are developing countries, competition in trade and economic areas is inevitable. "Without the mechanism of BRICS, the competition can be cutthroat. But BRICS countries now have a good platform to communicate and control their competition in a healthy direction," said Chen.

While boosting multilateral cooperation under the BRICS framework, the mechanism provides a platform for bilateral cooperation between BRICS members. During this year's summit, two agreements between China and Brazil and 10 between South Africa and Russia were signed. China and Brazil signed a financial policy memorandum as well as an agreement on a currency swap to broaden access to financial resources between the two countries whenever the need arises. Russia and South Africa reached agreements on air safety, transportation, energy and science and technology.

According to the action plan issued at the summit, BRICS nations will explore the possibility of strengthening cooperation between their state-owned firms, and promote dialogue among small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, BRICS members will also consider expanding their cooperation to more sectors including public diplomacy, anti-corruption, drug control, youth exchanges, tourism, energy and sports.

Previously, BRICS countries put more emphasis on development. But in the newly released Durban Declaration, the leaders expressed BRICS concerns over a variety of hotspot issues throughout the world.

According to the declaration, BRICS nations called for the reform of international financial institutions to make them more representative and to reflect the growing weight of BRICS and other developing countries.

"The mechanism is playing a bigger role in coordinating developing countries' stances on world issues. And this will be helpful for BRICS to act as a whole unit in international forums such as the Group of 20," Chen stressed.

Email us at: dingying@bjreview.com

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