Comment by the Information and Press Department on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s participation in the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting
On June 4, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend a BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting in Pretoria.
The BRICS foreign ministers will focus on a wide range of the most pressing problems of maintaining international peace and stability, supporting the world economy and coordinating BRICS cooperation in the difficult conditions of global political turbulence. The ministers will have an in-depth exchange of opinions on the situation in hot spots and common tasks of countering new challenges and threats, primarily, in fighting international terrorism and ensuring international information security. They will pay special attention to the preparations for the 10th anniversary BRICS Summit on July 25-27 in Johannesburg.
Deepening strategic partnership in BRICS is one of Russia’s foreign policy priorities. In recent years, the association of five large countries with emerging economies and developing nations has turned from a “hobby club” into a full-fledged mechanism of versatile strategic partnership. The leaders of the association annually hold two summits – the main one, and a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 session – and about 100 official events, including 20 at the ministerial level. There is a broad network of industry-specific contacts and cooperation between the BRICS countries – their business circles, academics and other representatives of civil society.
The five nations are committed to promoting indivisible security and international stability in all dimensions, using collective methods of resolving crises by political and diplomatic methods, and practicing multilateralism. They are against armed interventions, unilateral economic measures of coercion, protectionism and unfair competition. The BRICS countries jointly advocate upholding the foundations of a multilateral trade system and the WTO’s role as the only universal platform for drafting rules of global trade.
The association is jointly searching for new sources of economic growth. It played an important role in promoting the IMF reform. The five nations established a New Development Bank and a Contingent Reserve Arrangement to facilitate the modernisation of the global system of management and financial security. They five support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change.
The BRICS countries focus on consolidating and diversifying mechanisms of multi-faceted cooperation, and on the innovative search for new areas of cooperation. Being open to the outside world, BRICS is consistently expanding cooperation with interested countries and integration associations.
