Zimbabwe calls for Brics expansion to counter the West’s dominance

Zimbabwe has called for the expansion of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) bloc so as to increase its markets and boost the economies of the envisaged expanded organisation.

Addressing the 6th Brics Media Forum in Johannesburg Saturday, Zimbabwean Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Monica Mutsvangwa lambasted the West’s continued economic isolation of Zimbabwe for over two decades.

“We cannot let the exclusionary nightmare of a solo dash by the West to their 18-19th century industrial Revolution oligopoly mercantile practices come back to haunt the Global South.

“The Brics family must continue to expand beyond the current number because of the imperative of extricating the Global South from the clutches of predatory trade systems. We must exhaust all avenues for creating lasting bonds.

“We need to rapidly develop our Brics-Plus markets and link them up. We must have more systematic and concerted market exchanges, we just must raise the bar so we make costly if impossible to those who want to exclude or deny global market coalescence,” Mutsvangwa said.

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The two-day media forum held in Johannesburg is attended by senior media executives and journalists, diplomats and business leaders from the Brics member states and some of the countries aspiring for Brics membership.

The gathering is a forerunner to the main Brics Summit to run from 22-24 August at the Sandton Convention Centre.

She said the clarion call to a shared and unbiased future implied a number of things, of which capacity development was on top.

Africa, she added, has to develop capacity beyond its primary industry to produce tradable products among its nations, the Brics community and the rest of the world.

“My own country Zimbabwe has borne the burden of illegal and unilateral sanctions imposed on us by the USA for the past 23 years.

“Africa as a whole faces the scourge of neo-colonialism as a real menace to our progress as it stifles investment.”

“Subsequently, illicit financial flows dominated the extractive sector. As part of circumventing the economic haemorrhage of our economy, the country had been engaged in massive value addition, especially to its fledging lithium sector.”

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The minister highlighted the growth of the steel production sector in Zimbabwe with Chinese firm Tshingshan Holdings championing the establishment of the largest African steel plant in Zimbabwe.

“Regardless of the neoliberal propaganda malice against thriving Global-South, we continue to witness South-South financial inclusivity defining the future of global capital.

“We need to rapidly develop our Brics-Plus markets and link them up,” Mutsvangwa said.

This further underscores harnessing intra-and interstate productive industries vigorously while dissuading wanton exports of raw materials.

Zimbabwe had put a ban on the raw export of a number of minerals including chrome, platinum, black granite among others, and lithium, among others.

“This is to ensure that we get higher returns, and we are pleased with the support we are getting from Brics countries to this end,” Mutsvangwa said.

The politician said Zimbabwe was seeking to deepen ties with each of the five-member countries as presently composed.

She believes the shared future within Brics Plus would translate into infrastructure development.

“Zimbabwe is working to ensure that its road, rail, air and digital communication facilities and networks are world-class to ensure that we can support the anticipated growth in common South-to-South development,” she said.

Africa needed to accelerate the revamping of its communication networks in order to trade between and amongst themselves so as to grow their economies together.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) was a critical institution that must be supported to give affect Africa’s trade and development growth, she said.

“Zimbabwe has done away with prohibitive legislation that militated against open trade, hence the mantra of the new dispensation, ‘Zimbabwe is Open for Business.”

–ericn@citizen.co.za

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