As Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports this week, a South African official has announced that 22 Asian, African, and Latin American countries have formally applied for BRICS membership. This list includes seven Arab countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia.
A number of African nations have also officially announced their intention to become BRICS members. This list includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Nigeria, Senegal, the Union of the Comoros, and Ethiopia. In Asia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Kazakhstan also hope to join the group. Iran’s application has been under consideration since last year.
In the Americas, Argentina’s application has been under consideration since last year. On July 31, the presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela also expressed their nations’ interest in BRICS membership. Nailya Yakovleva, lead researcher with the Center for Political Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Latin American Studies, points out to Nezavisimaya Gazeta that countries such as these three are motivated to join BRICS to have better opportunities to attract foreign investment in infrastructure projects. The BRICS New Development Bank, chaired now by former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, is seen as an ideal source of the funding these countries need.
According to Gustavo de Carvalho, researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, many candidate countries play an important regional role and have rapidly developing economies and huge populations. Joining BRICS opens the door to use
alternative currencies, particularly in bilateral trade, making countries more independent from the ever more weaponized U.S. dollar.
