BRICS Expansion
In News: China, which is the BRICS chair for this year, said the recently held meeting of BRICS Foreign Ministers “reached consensus on the BRICS expansion process”.
Brief History Of BRICS Formation
– BRICS was not invented by any of its members.
– In 2001, Goldman Sachs’ Jim O’Neill authored a paper called “Building Better Global Economic BRICs”, pointing out that future GDP growth in the world would come from China, India, Russia and Brazil.
– In 2006, leaders of the BRIC countries met on the margins of a G-8 (now called G-7) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, and BRIC was formalised that year.
– The global financial crisis of 2007-08 reinforced the idea as BRIC countries had been relatively unscathed in the market collapse.
– On June 16, 2009, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with Presidents Hu Jintao, Dmitry Medvedev and Lula da Silva for the first BRIC summit in Yekaterinburg, and South Africa was subsequently admitted two years later.
Why Expansion?
– It is important to enhance cooperation with other emerging markets and developing countries, further improve the representation of BRICS, make BRICS’ voice in major international and regional issues more widely heard.
– To join hands to meet challenges, and uphold the common interests and development space of emerging markets and developing countries.”
Possible New Members
– The May 19 BRICS Foreign Ministers’ virtual meeting this year also invited Foreign Ministers of Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Nigeria, Senegal and Thailand to attend.
– So, some of them could join the grouping.
Progress so far
The BRICS-backed New Development Bank (NDB), based in Shanghai, has already inducted new members, with Bangladesh and the UAE joining last year, and Egypt and Uruguay approved to join the financial institution.
24th BRICS Summit
A virtual summit of leaders of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa grouping, likely to be held at the end of June this year.
ONDC
In News: Google is in talks with the Indian government to integrate its shopping services with the country’s open e-commerce network ONDC.
About ONDC
– India soft-launched its Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) last month as the Centre tries to end the dominance of U.S. firms Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market.
– The platform aims to create new opportunities, curb digital monopolies and by supporting micro, small and medium enterprises and small traders and help them get on online platforms.
– It is an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
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