Nineteen countries have expressed their willingness to join BRICS, Anil Sooklal, South Africa's ambassador to the bloc said, adding that the association of the five leading economies will consider membership applications.
According to Sooklal, BRICS member-states – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will meet in Cape Town on June 2-3 to discuss the bloc's expansion ahead of the summit that will take place in Durban, South Africa, in late August.
"What will be discussed is the expansion of BRICS and the modalities of how this will happen," the ambassador stated. "Thirteen countries have formally asked to join and another six have asked informally. We are getting applications to join every day."
He also stated that all the top diplomats of the association's five members have confirmed that they will participate in the discussions in June. Apart from membership bids to the organization, they are going to also discuss such "hot spots", as Sudan, where, apparently, a ceasefire was officially introduced on Tuesday after 10 days of conflict.
Earlier this year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also noted that the number of countries applying to join BRICS had surged to 20. Moscow's diplomacy chief outlined that many of those who had applied, including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Mexico and Egypt and other states, play an important role in their regions.