South Africa hosts 15th BRICS Summit

The 15th BRICS Summit is taking place at the Sandton Convention Centre from August 22–24, against the backdrop of a continued war in Ukraine, and a Russian presence in the coup-plagued Sahel region in Africa. This summit is the third one by the BRICS bloc to take place in South Africa.

The first BRICS Summit in South Africa was held in 2013 in Durban. The BRICS development bank was tabled at discussions during this summit. The second BRICS Summit held in South Africa was in 2018, also at the Sandton convention centre, and that year’s summit saw the formation of the Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR).

According to Advocate Mtho Xulu, president of the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, BRICS is an acronym for the powerful grouping of the world’s leading emerging market economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

“The BRICS mechanism aims to promote peace, security, development and cooperation,” said Xulu.

“It also aims at contributing significantly to the development of humanity and establishing a more equitable and fairer world.”

South Africa assumed the chair of BRICS nations this year, added Xulu.

“The priority is developing a partnership towards an equitable just transition. One of the key outcomes of this initiative will be the establishment of an African Centre of Excellence, which will network with centres of excellence across the African continent and the BRICS countries to share and collaborate on projects related to the just energy transition.

“The second priority is around transforming education and skills development for the future. The expected outcome of this initiative will be:

(i) the development of BRICS energy skills benchmarking
(ii) the identification of current jobs data and statistics
(iii) a BRICS cooperative skill planning approach for the just energy transition and
(iv) identification of high impact areas where we need to undertake skills ecosystem mapping within the BRICS nations.”

Randburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Linda Blackbeard said the BRICS Summit 2023 is great for business in South Africa.

“I’m delighted at the BRICS activities and events going on. I trust our RSA businesses will benefit. This is what we need in our country – some vibrant activity encouraging trade and economic activity.”

Related article:

https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/333102/15th-brics-summit-in-sandton/

https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/333337/brics-summit-in-sandton/