Lula says the world will not be the same after the enlargement of BRICS forum

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Tuesday that the expansion of the BRICS forum, comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, will change the balance of power in the world and give more power to emerging economies.

"BRICS became a more powerful, stronger, more important thing. I believe that the world will not be the same after the enlargement of BRICS, at least in global economic discussions," the progressive leader said in his weekly social media broadcast.

The president used the broadcast to highlight the results of his visit last week to Africa, especially his participation in the BRICS Summit in South Africa, where it was decided that from January next year the forum will be expanded with the participation of six new members: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Iran.

According to Lula, this enlargement will make the BRICS an economically more powerful bloc than the G7, which brings together the seven largest world economies.

"Now the BRICS is stronger than the G7. In 1995 the G7 countries had a 45% share of world GDP by purchasing power parity and the BRICS had 16%. Now the BRICS has 32% and the G7 29%," he said.

According to Lula, this empowerment allows emerging economies to create new bases for negotiation in global discussions and multilateral organisations.

In this sense, he highlighted the article in the final declaration of the South Africa Summit in which the BRICS defended a reform of the United Nations Security Council and the enlargement of the body, which currently only has five permanent members.

"We want other countries to enter the Security Council to make it more representative. The 1945 UN no longer represents the world. It has to be enlarged and there are countries from Latin America, Africa and some like Germany and India that want to join," he said.

The progressive leader affirmed that this issue will be one of those he will address in his September meeting with US President Joe Biden in New York.

"We will insist on this because I believe that the UN has lost its representativeness and that problems such as climate change or the war in Ukraine can only be solved with strong world governance. War is a problem of lack of command in the UN, because only the countries in the Security Council are the ones making war. We need other countries to be in control," he said.

The president said that another of the proposals he presented at the summit and which was accepted was the creation of a business currency so that emerging economies can promote their trade without the need to use the dollar.

"We approved a mandate for the finance ministers to discuss a solution this year to see if at next year's summit we can create a reference currency for exports, just as the Europeans created the dollar," he said.

Lula clarified that the proposal does not seek to antagonise any country but to favour trade in emerging countries. "It is not against the dollar. It is in favour of Brazil and Brazilian trade," he said.