BRICS offers Hope in a Time of War

This is it. A date with destiny. All set for the most crucial geopolitical/geo-economic gathering of the year and arguably the decade.

The BRICS Summit under the Russian presidency in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, where Sunni Tatars coexist in perfect harmony with Orthodox Christians.

The BRICS Summit in Kazan will be the centerpiece of Russia’s 2024 chairmanship, which aims to strengthen multilateralism for fair global development and security, with new membe

rs Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE joining the group, and over 30 countries expressing interest in partnership.

The 2024 BRICS Summit, which opens in the Russian city of Kazan on October 22, is a three-day event that was touted by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as one of the main events on the global agenda.

All the excruciating work by sherpas and analysts throughout 2024 – supervised by the lead Russian diplomat in charge of BRICS, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov – converged to three final, separate key meetings in Moscow before the summit, grouping BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors, working groups, and the Business Council.

All that in a context that is now familiar for the Global Majority. The combined GDP of the current BRICS nations is over $60 trillion, way ahead of the G7;

Their average growth rate by the end of this year is projected to be 4%, higher than the 3.2% global average; and the bulk of economic growth for the near future will come from BRICS member-nations.

Even before the meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was stressing that BRICS is keen to bypass “politicized” Western platforms – a subtle reference to the sanctions tsunami and the weaponization of the US dollar – as BRICS work to create their own, Global Majority-friendly international payments system.

Russia, which has held the group’s rotating presidency since January 1, 2020, adds to enhancing the role of BRICS in the international monetary and financial system, developing interbank cooperation and expanding the use of national currencies in mutual trade.

A credible war escalation scenario may have been thwarted by the leak of secret high-level intel to the Five Eyes on the preparations by Israel-USA to strike Iran.

The strike will eventually happen – with dire consequences – but probably not this week, when it could have been timed to explicitly, and completely, disrupt the summit in Kazan and expel it from global headlines.

The joint statement by the BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors may not sound too adventurous, but the constraints reflect not only caution when facing a dangerous, cornered Hegemon, but internal contradictions among BRICS members.

On creating a single digital infrastructure for BRICS: already on. Russia is working on the use of digital currencies in investment processes in the interests of other developing economies.

That ties up with BRICS work on their own version of SWIFT for international financial transactions.

And also ties up with BRICS Pay – a debit card whose first trial run happened during the Business Council last week, not dissimilar to AliPay in China, and soon to be rolled out across BRICS members.

A BRICS single currency: Not being considered yet, this issue is not ripe yet. De-dollarization, Putin stressed, is proceeding step by step: We’re taking individual steps, one after another.

As regards finance, we did not drop the dollar. The dollar is the universal currency. But it wasn’t us – we were banned and barred from [using] it. And now 95% of all the external trade of Russia is denominated in national currencies.

They did it themselves with their own hands. They thought we would collapse.

Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2024.