Today, on the 198th anniversary of Bolivia’s independence from Spain, President Luis Arce Catacora, announced in his speech commemorating this event, that he intends to seek membership in the BRICS and strengthen ties with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Today, he said, the world is living through an “epochal change in which there are liberation struggles taking place on five continents as part of a global economic and geopolitical realignment.”
On July 31, Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Rogelio Mayta reported in a press conference that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had extended a personal invitation to Arce to attend the Aug. 22-24 BRICS summit in Johannesburg. The invitation was in response to a letter Arce had sent in June to the presidents of each of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), asking them to consider Bolivia’s membership. “The world will be watching what happens on Aug. 22-24 in South Africa,” Mayta said, “and Bolivia will be there, represented by our President,” the daily La Razon reported him saying. “Bolivia shares a vision regarding the need to advance toward a multipolar world order,” Mayta emphasized.
In his press conference, Mayta clarified that an invitation to the BRICs summit doesn’t mean that Bolivia would immediately become a member, but it would give it an opportunity to broaden its access to other parts of the world.
