BRICS Information Centre
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BRICS Information Centre |
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About the BRICS
The BRICS is an informal group of countries largely from the Global South that cooperate politically and diplomatically in order to create expanded partnerships and strengthened cooperation for development.
As of January 2025, the BRICS includes 11 countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.
The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRIC countries – met for the first time to discuss issues of global significance in Sapporo, Japan, on the eve of the 2008 G8 Toyako-Hokkaido Summit, although their foreign ministers had met at the United Nations General Assembly in the fall of 2006. BRIC leaders held their first standalone summit in 2009 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, and have met annually ever since. At their third summit in China in 2011, they invited South Africa to join, thus becoming the BRICS.
At the 2023 Johannesburg Summit, BRICS leaders set out guiding principles for expanding the group. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates became members, with Indonesia joining by the end of 2024. The expansion was intended to strengthen the capacity of Global South countries to engage on priority issues including reforming global governance institutions, promoting sustainable development and advocating for a balanced international order.
At the 2024 Kazan Summit, BRICS leaders created the status of "BRICS partner country." As of January 2025, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan are BRICS partner countries.
In addition to the summits, BRICS ministers responsible for foreign affairs, finance and the economy, trade, agriculture, health, culture, anticorruption and tourism, among other portfolios, meet regularly. There are also several officials-level meetings and working groups. Meetings are organized by the presidency, which rotates among the five original members in order of the acronym (B-R-I-C-S) on the first of the year.
The concept "BRICS" was first created by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs to refer to the investment opportunities of the rising emerging economies. However, BRICS meetings have transcended the financial context to embrace a wide range of issues relating to global governance, such as development, peace and security, energy, climate change, disaster management, migration and social issues.
About the BRICS Information Centre
The mission of the BRICS Information Centre is to serve as a leading independent source of information and analysis on the BRICS interaction and institutions. Documentation from the BRICS and research and reports will be published on this website as they become available.
The BRICS Information Centre focuses on the work of the BRICS, and within the BRICS, as a plurilateral international institution operating at the summit level. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction and reciprocal influence of the BRICS with the world, including the BRICS relationship with the G7, G20 and other plurilateral summit institutions and broadly multilateral organizations.