Algeria joins BRICS New Development Bank
Algeria announced its official entry into the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS, an association, group and political and economic forum of emerging countries that has formed an alternative international space to the G7, made up of the most developed countries, and which was initially formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The name of the formation, founded in 2006, is the initials of its member states, although as of 1 January 2024 Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia joined the group, as announced at its 15th Summit, held in August 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Other countries have continued to maintain their intention to join, such as Algeria, which has been pushing for membership and has recently announced its entry into the New Development Bank, through the Algerian Ministry of Finance.
Algeria's Ministry of Finance itself considers its entry an important step towards integration into the global financial system.
In this way, Algeria's integration means the presence of a third Arab country in the entity, together with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
The Algerian Ministry of Finance said in an official statement that ‘the official approval of the country's accession to the international financial institution came at the end of the ninth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the New Development Bank (NDB), which was held on Saturday in Cape Town, the capital of the Western Cape province of South Africa’.
The bank's president, Dilma Rousseff, confirmed the decision during a press conference held after the end of the work of the Board of Governors, according to official information.
The Algerian Ministry of Finance considered this accession to this important development institution, considered the financial arm of the BRICS group, as ‘an important step on the road to integration into the global financial system’.
It explained that this accession was the result of a ‘rigorous assessment’ and is largely due to ‘the strength of macroeconomic indicators, which reflect the strength of the Algerian economy’.
The communiqué added: ‘The distinguished performance of the Algerian economy in recent years in terms of growth rates, driven by reforms that included several sectors, made Algeria a reliable and effective partner within this institution’.
The Algerian Ministry of Finance communiqué considers that the accession to the BRICS Economic Group Bank will open new horizons to support and enhance the country's economic growth in the medium and long term.
Algerian officials say the country's economy has jumped to third place in Africa, overtaking Nigeria, with a gross domestic product exceeding 266 billion dollars, putting the North African nation in a good position.
New multipolar order
The New Development Bank was founded in 2015 by the BRICS economic grouping and aims to mobilise resources to finance sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries.
Algeria was unable to join at the last enlargement earlier this year following the summit in South Africa in the summer of 2023, despite President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's claim at the time that he had the support of China, Russia, South Africa and Brazil. Tebboune himself did not confirm that his country would join the bloc during the summit, indicating that the first step could be to become an observer country. In the end, however, it did not join the bloc, as was also the case with Argentina.
The BRICS group is seeking a pole of opposition to the powerful G7, which brings together the world's most developed economies, in order to give greater power on the international stage to emerging countries that do not have the financial weight of the larger ones, but which have a great and growing potential to establish a parallel pole with decision-making power and influence. All of this is focused on achieving a new multipolar economic order that does not depend on the traditional powers, above all the United States.
In fact, the New Development Bank was created in 2015 by the BRICS group as a multilateral development bank conceived as an alternative to the IMF and the World Bank, the large supranational financial entities that articulate global financial policy. The BRICS bloc is economically oriented and aims to enable developing countries, which resist the hegemony of Western countries, especially the United States, to gain greater representation in international affairs.
As reported by Al Arab, the next BRICS summit is scheduled to take place in Kazan, the Tatar capital of the Russian Federation, in October, with a strong Algerian presence.
Algeria thus joins the BRICS, a strategic ally for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This group of countries accounts for 36% of the world's Gross Domestic Product and now welcomes Algeria as a further step towards the ‘process of integration into the global financial system’.
This move consolidates the strong presence of China and Russia in Africa, already established with military moves by Russia through private military companies and economic and business moves by China, which is investing heavily in the African continent to increase its power and geopolitical presence.