Ahead BRICS summit, envoys call for greater focus on combating terrorism

New Delhi: Ahead of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro next month, envoys of leading member nations of the grouping underlined the need for greater focus to combat terrorism and called for mainstreaming the interests and aspirations of the Global South as a key agenda. With US President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs encouraging a trend towards de-dollarisation, the envoys also backed the expansion of the use of national currencies for intra-BRICS trade and pitched for deeper cooperation on economic issues. India, on its part, stressed on the pivotal importance of the grouping in promoting scalable solutions for the Global South or developing nations in areas of financial inclusion and advocated greater use of national currency in international trade. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and several other leaders are expected to attend the 17th BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro on July 6 and 7.

BRICS brings together 11 major emerging economies of the world, representing around 49.5 per cent of the global population, around 40 per cent of the global GDP and around 26 per cent of the global trade. “BRICS has to get its act together and find solutions for the Global South. This requires commitment, a lot of hard work, and to be able to look deep into those issues, into the future,” said Dammu Ravi, India’s BRICS sherpa and Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Ravi highlighted India’s growing stakes in shaping BRICS as both a development platform and a geopolitical force. “We are not just participants -- we are contributors to the very direction BRICS takes,” he noted.