Initially a grouping of non-Western countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the bloc held its inaugural summit in Russia in 2009. It expanded to include South Africa in 2010, which settled the bloc’s name as BRICS. Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates acceded in January 2024.

Indonesia formally joined BRICS as a full member on Jan. 6, 2025. President Prabowo Subianto attended the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 6-7, urging the bloc to revive the Bandung Spirit in the face of global tensions and trade wars.

This year’s BRICS Summit is scheduled for Sept. 12 and 13 in New Delhi.

Bloc for fragmented world

Foreign Ministry special staffer for multilateral policy Tri Tharyat said the foreign ministers of BRICS’ founding countries had gathered on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2006 and come up with a proposition that countries were entitled to speak for themselves even if they were “outside the traditional centers” of decision-making.

Tharyat pointed out that the world had become fragmented, with countries unilaterally making up trading rules and rewiring global supply chains according to political considerations rather than the economic law of comparative advantage.

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