NEW DELHI, Sept 9: “Today we are an influential voice for emerging economies of the world. This platform has also been useful for focussing attention on the priories of the developing nations as well,” the Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his opening remarks to the virtual summit of the 13th BRICS summit on Thursday.
The five-nation grouping of BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) has adopted a “counter terrorism action plan” and “we have to ensure that BRICS is more productive in next 15 years,” Modi said.
“BRICS has made many achievements in the last one-and-a-half decade,” told the meet which is being attended by the Presidents of Russia Vladimir Putin, of China Xi Jinping, of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazil Jair Bolsonaro.
Thanking the partners for full cooperation during India’s presidency, Modi said, “It is a matter of great pleasure for me and India to chair this summit for the 15th anniversary of the summit. India has received full cooperation from all BRICS partners during its chairmanship. I am deeply grateful to all of you for this.”
“Despite the Covid situation this year, over 150 BRICS meetings and events were organised. Of these, over 20 were ministerial-level. We tried to expand the BRICS agenda. BRICS achieved many firsts this year…Our Water Resources Ministers will meet in BRICS format for the first time in November,” Modi said.
This is the second time Modi is chairing the BRICS Summit. Earlier he had chaired the Goa Summit in 2016. The BRICS brings together five of the largest developing countries of the world, representing 41 per cent of the global population, 24 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of the global trade. India hosted the summit in its capacity as its chair.
In his address, the Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the issue of Afghanistan, saying it should not become a “threat to its neighbouring countries, a source of drug trafficking and terrorism.” The citizens of Afghanistan have “fought for decades and deserve to exercise their rights of defining of what their state will look like on their own,” he added, days after the new interim government named by Taliban.
While the theme for the summit is ”BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus”, the focus is expected to be on Afghanistan. Taliban, which took over Kabul nearly a month ago, has appointed hardline veterans — including several carrying US bounty – in key posts, to which many nations have responded with caution.
Putin said the withdrawal of the US and its allies from Afghanistan has led to new crisis and it was “still unclear” how it would affect regional and global security. “Global security has faced serious challenges and system of strategic stability has gone all down. Our countries have paid special attention to this issue (Afghanistan). Russia and its BRICS partners have consistently spoken for establishing for its long awaited peace and stability on Afghan soil,” President Putin added.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said the five countries of the grouping have supported multilateralism and taken part in global governance in the spirit of equity justice and mutual assistance. “Over the past 15 years, our five countries have enhanced strategic communication and political trust in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness, and equality and explored a sound path to interact with each other. Our five countries have sought synergy between our development policies and drawn on our complementarities. We have made solid progress in various areas of cooperation in the spirit of pragmatism, innovation. And we have forged ahead on our common journey of development,” Xi Jinping said.
(Manas Dasgupta)
