In her regular weekly briefing on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reported that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will participate in several key meetings of the Global South this month alone: the BRICS Summit in Brazil, July 6-7 (President Putin will address it by video, while Lavrov attends in person); the nested East Asia Summit, Russia-ASEAN Dialogue, and ASEAN Regional Forum, being held in Malaysia on July 10-11; and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Tianjin, China, July 14-15. The latter is the key meeting in which the final details are hammered out for the final agenda and documents for the SCO Heads of State Summit, which will be held August 30-Sept. 1 in Tianjin.
As for the economic agenda of the BRICS Summit, Zakharova noted, in particular, that “discussions will center on improving the international monetary and financial system, as well as advancing BRICS initiatives, including the New Investment Platform, an independent settlement and depository infrastructure, and the BRICS Grain Exchange.” She indicated that those discussions would take place during the BRICS-Plus/outreach sessions, where the new BRICS Partner nations will participate with invited representatives from key Global South regional organizations and from the Ibero-American countries (since Brazil is the host).
