BRICS Summit 2023: 6 more nations have been asked to join the BRICS group of countries

Six more nations have been asked to join the BRICS group of countries, which has vowed to support the "Global South".

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The main topic of discussion during the three-day meeting in Johannesburg was the expansion of BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Although all five BRICS nations have officially stated their support for growth, there may be disagreements among the leaders over how quickly and by how much.

Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have all been invited to join the BRICS as part of the group's initial expansion, according to Cyril Ramaphosa, president of South Africa. On January 1, 2023, the new membership will go into effect.

The guiding principles, standards, criteria, and procedures for the BRICS expansion process, which have been under discussion for some time, have been agreed upon by the five BRICS nations, Ramaphosa stated during a joint media briefing.

He said that, the other phases of this expansion process will come after the first phase, on which we have reached agreement.

A fifth of the world's economies and more than three billion people are represented in the bloc, which has received formal applications from close to two dozen nations.

India has not joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which the other five new members have all signed deals to join. China had a major role in the campaign for enlargement, but South Africa and Russia—which is battling its diplomatic isolation as a result of the conflict in the Ukraine—also supported it.

Modi's appeal for UN reforms to China

In addition to congratulating Ramaphosa on the successful summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that India has consistently supported the growth of the BRICS membership.

India has always maintained that the BRICS organisation will become stronger with the inclusion of new members, and that this will give our joint efforts a fresh push. The multipolar world order would get more support as a result, according to PM Modi.

The cooperation between BRICS and the new members would be able to gain fresh pace and energy, according to Prime Minister Modi. He pointed out that India and the new BRICS members have extremely long-standing and close ties, and he said that the bilateral collaboration will also take on new dimensions.

The expansion and modernization of the BRICS project convey a signal to all international bodies that they must change to fit the times we live in.

The prime minister made an obvious reference to the long-standing demand to expand the UN Security Council by increasing the number of both permanent and non-permanent representatives when he said, this effort can serve as a template for improvements during other international organisations founded in the 20th century.