TNT:
CandyKisses: Media reveal new BRICS members
Baghdad – NAS
The Brazilian correspondent of the UOL website in Geneva, Jamil Chad, revealed the names of the countries that will accept membership in the “BRICS” group, according to a draft final statement of the group that he has seen.
According to Chad, the statement named Argentina, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as new members of the group. The selection of those States for membership in the Group had been taken into account geographical balance.
Several countries have expressed interest in joining the BRICS with the fifteenth Emerging Economies Summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
More than 20 countries have applied to join the group, including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Vietnam. Others, such as Mexico, Pakistan and Turkey, have expressed interest in membership.
BRICS countries account for 23 percent of global GDP and 42 percent of the world’s population, but the group is heterogeneous: the five countries, spread across 4 continents, have economies with uneven growth.
Given the diversity of countries aspiring to join the group, “it’s hard to see what the criteria for potential expansion are,” said John Strimlow, a specialist in international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Observers say the entry of new countries into the group could change the group’s geopolitical balances. The BRICS countries share a demand for a multipolar global economic and political balance.
Among the countries competing for membership are traditionally non-aligned countries, such as Indonesia and Ethiopia. But there are also countries that are openly hostile to the United States and its allies, such as Iran and Venezuela.
Kobus van Stadden, a South African scholar specializing in China-Africa relations, said “if Iran joins the BRICS, it will dramatically change the group’s political scope” just as it would be if Saudi Arabia joined.
The new development bank, set up by the BRICS Group in 2015 with the aim of offering an option other than the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, accepted new members: Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Uruguay should soon become part of it.
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Tishwash: Economist: It is not in Iraq’s interest to join the BRICS alliance in light of Washington’s control over Baghdad’s economy
The economic expert, Mustafa Hantoush, attributed the impossibility of Iraq joining the economic bloc “BRICS” to the control of the United States of America over most of the joints of the Iraqi economy.
“The BRICS alliance was formed on the basis of common interests between 5 countries, namely China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa, after which several countries joined the alliance,” Hantoush said in a press interview seen by Taqaddam.
And Hantoush added, “Iraq has previous experiences, which put it before several countries’ lack of interest in any international sanctions imposed on it before 2003. Iraqi oil is free. Those countries did not buy it or sustain it.”
He added, “The influence of the BRICS alliance countries in Iraq is almost non-existent, and whoever talks about the existence of an influence of Chinese trade on Iraq, as it was linked to the factors of the invasion of Iraq after 2003, so the rates of Beijing’s exports to Baghdad increased, and its economic and political influence compared to the American side on Iraq, is almost be non-existent.”
Hantoush explained, “The most appropriate decision for Iraq is to move towards joining the Arab Gulf Coalition, which has become this economic bloc allied with the United States of America. That is the American control over most of the joints of the Iraqi economy, so these alliances (BRICS) are not important for Iraq, and they do not advance or delay anything, except to provoke Washington’s anger against Baghdad. link
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