China to hold this year’s BRICS summit on June 23-24

PTI

Beijing, June 17

The 14th summit of BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - will be hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping here on June 23 via video link and would be followed by a high-level dialogue on global development the next day, the Foreign Ministry announced here on Friday.

China is this year’s chair of the BRICS.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa are expected to take part in the summit to be hosted by Chinese President Xi.

The Summit will be held in virtual format under the theme of ‘Foster High-quality BRICS Partnership, Usher in a New Era for Global Development’, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement.

BRICS leaders and leaders of “relevant” emerging markets and developing countries will also attend a high-level dialogue on Jun 24 and hold a dialogue on ‘Foster a Global Development Partnership for the New Era to Jointly Implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, Hua said in a statement on Friday.

Xi will also take part in the opening ceremony of the BRICS Business Forum in virtual format on June 22 and deliver a keynote speech, she said.

In the run-up to the summit, China held a series of preparatory meetings, including the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting followed by a meeting of the National Security Advisors (NSAs).

India’s NSA Ajit Doval took part in the BRICS top security officials meeting held virtually on Wednesday.

The top security officials of the five countries held an in-depth exchange of views and reached a consensus on issues such as strengthening multilateralism and global governance and responding to new threats and challenges to national security, according to the Chinese official media report.

Doval called for bolstering cooperation against terrorism without any reservations as he addressed the meeting of the five-nation grouping.

The meeting also discussed strengthening and improving governance in new frontiers, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

All parties expressed their readiness to work for fruitful outcomes of the 14th BRICS summit, it said.

The meeting reviewed the work of the working group on counter-terrorism and cyber security, agreed to jointly promote plans and roadmaps for international counter-terrorism and cyber security cooperation, and uphold the central coordinating role of the United Nations in the global counter-terrorism cause.

The officials called for a more inclusive, representative and democratic global Internet governance system.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took part in the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting convened by his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi and held virtually on May 19.

On the side-lines of the Foreign Ministers conference, China, which is pushing for the expansion of the BRICS bloc, also held a BRICS Plus meeting with Foreign Ministers from Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, the UAE and Thailand.

BRICS’ New Development Bank has already admitted Bangladesh, the UAE, Egypt and Uruguay as its members.

Later in his media briefing on Friday, Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin said BRICS countries, as a cooperation mechanism, are an important one for emerging markets and developing countries as well as an important platform for South-South cooperation.

“For 16 years since its inception, it has maintained good sound development momentum and has greater appeal. At this meeting, we hope that we can deepen the strategic partnership and draw a greater blueprint for development and promote and make a greater contribution to the development,” he said.

He said the summit will discuss ways to conduct BRICS plus cooperation at higher levels, in wider areas and larger scope, so as to inject more BRICS strength into global development and more positive energy into the world facing turbulence and challenges.

Asked about the countries China has invited to take part in the Jun 24 meeting, Wang said: “We are now in communication with relevant countries and we will release information in due course.”

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