As a significant development at the end of three-day summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, it was announced that BRICS has invited six countries – Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to join the group as full members from the 1st of January next year. President of China Xi Jinping described the expansion of the membership as “historic.” More than 40 countries had been interested in joining BRICS and 23 formally applied to join the group. The current BRICS countries represent a quarter of the global economy and 40 percent of the world’s population.
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